


Customs and Duties

by tortoiseshells



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Assorted Real People in the Background, Austen Pastiche, Canon Divergence - Post-Curse of the Black Pearl, Canon-Atypical Levels of Parlor Diplomacy, Child Death Mentions, Colonial Massachusetts Politics and Affairs, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Latin Quotation For Fun And Profit, Pregnancy Mention(s), Slow Burn, Smuggling and General Lawlessness, The Canon Timeline is More What You'd Call Guidelines Anyway, near-drowning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22898746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: In disgrace with the Admiralty after offering mercy to Jack Sparrow, James Norrington finds himself shuffled off to the New England coast with a task equal parts boring and undesirable: act as a deterrent to foreign interference, and bolster customs officials' half-hearted attempts to crack down on rampant smuggling. No one in Boston is happy about this - least of all Nellie Treat, hanging onto her late husband's less-than-legal business and her own good name by her very fingernails.
Relationships: James Norrington/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 107
Kudos: 48





	1. Unsettled Affairs

_Boston, Province of Massachusetts, 1738_  
Nellie Treat set a tallow candle in the desk-corner, and drew her heavy account-book from the shelf. It should have been able to keep until morning, but all she could see in the darkness was HMS _Garland_ riding at anchor beyond Long Wharf, and little Mr. Moreland’s face gone rigid in the market while the new-comer officers forced him through his paces, and after fruitless tossing and turning and trying to concern herself with Sam’s Latin or Polly’s embroidery roses that had more in common with cabbages or what to give Mary (now that their father was dead) for her marriage and how to pay for _that_ – she’d just given up. Fumbling her way out of bed, she drew her late husband’s banyan around her, and padded through the heavy darkness to the downstairs.

 _God_ , poor Moreland. She’d felt a twinge for the man, caught between that hawk-eyed Commodore and Thomas Hancock, but only just: the Lord above knew how well she’d lined the crooked customs-man’s pockets, and she wasn’t especially fond of him in the first place. So perhaps she had been a little glad to see the weasel dressed down for all of Boston to see. No crime in that, and none in the looks of relief she’d caught from Small and Whitcomb, or any other Captain or merchant thanking Providence that it had been Hancock caught smuggling and not them. After all, the only thing in between herself and forfeiting a hold full of Dutch molasses was a fake bill of sale and a prayer – and the Royal Navy keeping their noses elsewhere.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. _I can’t afford to lose that shipment_ , and yet, Nellie had to plan for what should happen if her _Breeds Hill_ was re-inspected before she could transfer the hogsheads to Gookin. She’d be out the whole cargo and have broken her word to the distiller – and still be in his debt. Setting aside the legal proceedings! Moreland’s voice might have been shaking, but if Norrington managed to have Hancock hauled before an Admiralty Court? And if it happened to her? _Well, at least Mr. Bishop is indebted to me_. At least her lawyer could be paid for.

 _Indeed_ , she thought wryly, turning a page to yet more credits and debts, _it might even burnish my standing in town_. Avarice might have been Boston’s besetting sin, but among its slender virtues was the stubborn clannishness of men stuck together in an open boat. What a change that would be from the suspicion with which she’d been regarded, an unknown woman, a new bride on Captain Treat’s arm those twelve years ago!

But that was not the point. Fellow-feeling wouldn’t keep her and her children fed for long, and certainly wouldn’t pay for Sam’s schooling or Polly’s dowry – or her own standing. She needed plans, a course: one, in case she lost the molasses aboard _Breeds Hill_ , and two, how to proceed in the future. Smuggling into Boston was fast becoming a much more difficult proposition than it had been only a few weeks ago … 

Nellie woke herself when her head dropped out of her hands and onto the desk – the world outside was lightening, and the cheap tallow had long since gone out, if the foul-smelling wax was anything to go by. _Ridiculous_ , she thought, bundling her books away. _Nothing more than a child’s nightmare_. But her hands were unsteady as she turned the key in the lock, and she cursed herself for allowing herself to fall prey so easily to her own worst imaginings.

It was so easy to be afraid when you were alone, but that wasn’t the truth of it. Nellie Treat was not alone in this world, or even under this roof: Sam and Polly, her sister Mary, even Susannah and Sally depended upon her (setting aside her captains and sailors!). If she had been alone in the world, she could have resigned herself to withstand whatever befell her and Captain Treat’s memory. Responsibility – that Captain Treat had no brother or cousin he trusted half so well as his wife, and so left all of his affairs to her outright – made each fear cast a swollen shadow, a terrifying blackness that overwhelmed the object itself.

She paced in the parlor for a few minutes before resigning herself to wakefulness and the day. In her chambers, she hastily pinned herself into her sober grays and blacks, not wanting to wake Susannah yet – that was as good as an admission of last night’s folly as anything, and it would be a long enough day without her maid’s disconcertingly clear-eyed sympathy. Besides, this was the sort of thing you got used to, a widow, having once had the Captain to help with the office. Asking for another’s aid seemed an admission that – that she’d accepted he was gone.

 _Enough of that_ , she warned herself, smoothing her hands over her hips. 

She’d have enough cause to think about the Captain later, when she went to pay Smibert and collect the family’s portrait, long left lingering on the painter’s studio walls. How fortunate that she’d had the excuse of bereavement to give the man! – when the truth was her affairs were in such a state after the Captain’s death, after the expense of his funeral and then her little baby Jennet’s, that she couldn’t have paid him. It seemed the height of foolishness to pay Smibert now, even so – with the new Commodore intent on the enforcement of the empire’s customs and duties and the threat of losses and seizures so close at hand, Nellie felt as though the last year’s smuggling and scraping had been for naught. Still. She had told Smibert to expect her. And, she owned to herself, braiding her hair and pinning it away, she wanted to bring them home.

Nellie went down to the kitchen after she heard Sally begin raking out yesterday’s ashes and Susannah start the morning’s baking, moving between them to brew coffee ( _perhaps that’s why I’m always broke_ , she thought wryly) and grab the stale ends of Saturday’s bread. She tore at the scraps more than consumed them while she and Susannah went over accounts. Off Sally went to the market, officially for milk, and unofficially for whatever gossip regarding the Hancock seizure or the doings of Commodore Norrington were on offer – and then a scarce half-hour to review Sam’s Latin grammar before it was time to wake Mary and the children.

A typical morning, Nellie reflected, with her hand on the door of Polly and Sam’s room: “My dears, it’s time to wake up …”

* * *

Folding her scrap-paper calculations into her pocket, Nellie kissed Polly and Sam and bade them mind their lessons and their Aunt Mary, before hurrying out the door and about her errands. It was early, but how could anyone in Boston have slept? Mr. Bishop, managing the legal affairs of twenty captains at least, would have spent a long and sleepless night – as sleepless as the harbor’s business, likely carried on into the darkness to cheat Moreland and Norrington. No, Bishop would be awake to listen to her concerns and her plans, and Small would have a report of his progress – and Hendricks, with his fast little _Watch and Wait_ about to sail for the West Indies, would be collecting letters from shipowners and merchants to their Captains in those waters, with new instructions and intelligence related to the changing legal ground in Boston. _He’s probably charging a king’s ransom for the office, too_ , but Nellie grudgingly respected her friend's eye for profit. She had two copies of letters to her men in her pocket, a handful of coins to pay their illegal postage, and a strange mixed feeling of apprehension and buoyant defiance – all jangling together as she moved from the quiet of Summer Street to Cornhill, and thence into the noisy heart of Boston.

Bishop, looking like pallid Death beneath his periwig, was not best pleased to see her again in less than a half-day, fobbing her off on Minot, his student – it was Minot who had run between Bishop and Gookin yesterday, and had a better sense of what was said in the streets about Moreland, Norrington, and any illegal cargos. At the Green Dragon, he’d heard that Norrington had seized Moreland’s books and was intending to review every cargo, every transaction; at the Blue Anchor, that Norrington had been over the books and had already planned his next seizures. The second possibility was alarming, the first only uncomfortable. She knew which she’d rather, but gossip was gossip, and perhaps there were harder facts.

“Has he been seen today?” Nellie asked, forcing her hands to stay still in her lap, feeling her stomach twist and knot instead.

“No, ma’am,” Minot answered, with a glance out the window to the street, “No one’s been on or off the _Garland_ all morning.”

At least she could count on the truth of that. HMS _Garland_ was more closely watched than any other ship in the harbor – than a babe in a room of aunts. She had no cause to walk down King Street towards Long Wharf, but she did anyway. Easily a dozen men stood – at corners or in doorways – staring out across the water towards where the black-hulled frigate rode at anchor.

She swiveled her gaze to the _Breeds Hill_ , and the vast barrels being swung out of her hold. Would it be fast enough?

 _Foolish_ , Nellie told herself, turning on her heel. Foolish to come down here, where she’d learn nothing new, and only worry herself further by watching Small carry out his business. Norrington, damn him, would do what he would – and, as things stood, she could only respond to his movements as he made them. She stalked off towards the _Watch and Wait_ , where her last piece of business lay, before she could go ask Aunt Bendish for intelligence – if not assistance.

* * *

Nellie heard the sound of fluid notes and arpeggios as she approached the Bendish house, faint but certain, building up towards a flourish like a stalk to a bloom. _Lydia_ , she thought, and then: _good_. Poor Hal Bendish was tone-deaf, and swore the sounds of his sister’s scales were as good as his mother’s good silver tossed to the ground all at once – so if Lydia was at her spinet, then Hal and his father were about their business in town. It wasn’t that Uncle Bendish was unhelpful or untrustworthy: John Bendish was as keen and honest as a July day was long, and therein was the problem, when he was so involved in the Crown’s business. Better he be out, and leave her to sort through her precarious affairs alone with Aunt Bendish. Aunt B had never and would never help her with the actual business of smuggling, but did not see it as a contradiction of terms to indirectly advise her wayward niece-by-marriage from time to time – especially when the Treat fortunes were on the line.

She thanked Providence that the day which had begun so inauspiciously had at least given her this. Mercy met her at the door with a bobbing curtsey, and, before Nellie could apologize to the maid for her unexpected visit, ushered her aside into the fashionable dining room, where traces of breakfast had long since been swept away.

Perhaps she had been expected, after all? Nellie heard footfalls on the narrow front stairs and her Aunt’s voice in the hall, and then she glided in, with a rustle of fine cotton and silk.

“Good morning, my dear!” Aunt B caught her in a warm embrace, stepping back only to take in Nellie’s somber greys and blacks, and the dark hollows from the long night. Then, softer: “Hard going?” 

_Hard going?_ The subdued colors and trim had become a habit, and a comforting one at that – while she’d gone to her parlor in the small hours, numbers having lost their meaning and thinking only what Captain Treat would have had her do, she looked at the wall where the portrait would go, she’d accepted the empty space between sconces and by her side: Captain Treat was gone, and little Jenny with him. It wasn’t the loss, it was what had been left – a name, debts, two children who needed care, a sister without much of a dowry. “Sleep eluded me,” she said, aware it was not precisely an answer, but the easiest thing to say. 

“I imagine,” murmured Aunt B, and, with a delicate pause to listen to the sounds of the house, continued in a low and cool voice, “I half-expected you earlier, truth be told.”

“I would have come, but -”

“You wished to speak with Captain Small and Mr. Gookin first.”

Nellie nodded, settling into a chair by the window, and, pulling a length of fine white cotton into her lap, picked up her whitework. Keeping her hands busy at least forestalled the worst of her nervous fidgets. “I did – I wanted to, and I did, at least to Small. I had to send Mr. Bishop speak to Gookin for me, yesterday.”

Aunt Bendish nodded encouragingly, beginning to sort through Nellie’s disordered work-basket. 

“Nothing surprising from either. Captain Small is moving the molasses as fast as he’s able, and Gookin assists him.”

“You had Mr. Bishop ask about the possibility of alternate payment if the cargo should be forfeit?”

“I haven’t got anything Gookin wants, save everything in the _Breeds Hill_ ’s hold. Molasses, and if not, gold.” 

“I won’t insult you by asking you if you have another plan to settle Captain Treat’s debt.” Folding up a ragged chemise Nellie had marked for kerchiefs, Aunt B came to a half-made shirt for Sam, the left sleeve indifferently pinned. She immediately set to correcting it.

“ _Plans_ ,” Nellie corrected, and thinking back to the long and sleepless night she’d passed, pressed her lips together to keep the rest from falling out in a rush. She forced herself to take a breath, and another, and watched Aunt B pull and reset pins for a few long moments while she marshalled her thoughts. “If Norrington has the cargo seized, I’ll sell – something. Gookin’s never liked me and he won’t wait any longer for payment. Captain Hendricks has offered to buy the _Tryall_ from me before – he came up in her, she needs some repairs and he knows he can get her cheaper because of it. I’ll be sorry to let her go, but – well. I’d be sorrier to lose my reputation.”

“And if Hendricks doesn’t have the capital?”

Nellie stabbed a few messy stitches in her kerchief and huffed, angry that she’d even thought it, much less have to admit it out loud. “I’ll sell our holdings in the Equivalent Lands. Governor Belcher’s bought up land there before, and he’ll pay in coin or specie. I know the Captain set that land aside for Sam’s Harvard fees,” Nellie added hastily, watching a cloud of dismay cross her Aunt’s face, “And I like this plan worse than the last. But I had rather lose the lands and keep the good name, my business standing – I can make up the necessary money somehow, with those.”

Aunt B said nothing for some long moments. Had she gone too far? The Connecticut Equivalent lands predated her marriage – Captain Treat’s father had purchased lands to divide between his children over a score of years before. If anything that had come to her after the Captain’s death could properly be said to belong to someone else it would have been that. Nellie tallied up figures and possibilities in the silence, listening to the tick of the hall clock and to Lydia’s sure-handed playing. “Sensible plans,” Aunt B said, at last, “But I would be pained to see you have to enact them. We will pray that it does not come to that. Indeed, I believe you will not have to.”

“Aunt?”

“It’s said, in town, that Mr. Hancock had gone to speak with Governor Belcher – late, as befits the business. If that is the case, and Belcher chooses to involve himself? I do not think you may count upon the Commodore’s attention being completely – distracted. But if Captain Small can finish in the next few days …”

“There is a very good chance Moreland won’t have time to re-inspect?”

“Just so.”

Nellie exhaled a shaky breath she had not realized she was holding, and rest her head in her hands a moment, while Aunt B pressed a handkerchief onto her. 

“Thank you,” Nellie mumbled, and other inchoate things besides – a blessing, and invocation, pure relief at such news, which turned – somehow or other – into a watery laugh. “You really have to lead with these things – how long were you going to let me fret and destroy my whitework?”

“Not much longer, at any road,” Aunt B replied, with an anxious smile, “I am expecting company.”

“I’d guessed by your dress.”

“It’s the Commodore,” said Aunt B sharply, setting aside Sam’s shirt, “Commodore Norrington. Mr. Bendish has asked me to take tea with him, and he will be arriving shortly. He has a sitting with Mr. Smibert this afternoon.”

Nellie spluttered, gathered herself, and spluttered again. “Norrington?”

“Yes.”

“Commodore Norrington.”

“Yes, recently arrived to these shores.”

Nellie, still feeling as though she were trying to run on ice, started and stopped several times more – hadn’t Aunt B listened to a thing she said? That Norrington had seized Thomas Hancock’s cargo, and was threatening to seize the cargoes of half the ships in Boston Harbor? The man whose actions had robbed her of any peace for the last two weeks, and of any sleep for the last day? Why on earth should she want to take tea with him? Nellie shook her head violently, and shoved the set-aside shirt into her work basket. “No, absolutely not, Aunt. I wish you the best, but I cannot join you.”

“Because of the _Breeds Hill_ cargo?”

“Because of my livelihood and the livelihoods of your relations, yes!”

Quick as a snake, Aunt B seized her hand in both of hers, and held purposefully. “Please, my dear, will you hear me out? You may leave after, but I ask that you listen to what I have to say first.” 

Nellie grimaced, and sat again.

“Good.” Aunt B dropped her voice still further, forcing Nellie to move the basket from her lap and lean forward. “It is because of the _Breeds Hill_ and all the rest of your activities that you ought to stay for tea, Elinor. Boston is a small city. You cannot escape the acquaintance forever, and so you must make the smart choice while you can. Would you like to meet him on the deck of the _Breeds Hill_ , scrambling in the face of a party of bayonet-bearing Marines? Or here, in the parlor of Mr. John Bendish, one of his most important allies in the colony of Massachusetts?”

It was a good argument, Nellie owned, but that didn’t mean she liked it. She nodded. “And knowing that I am John Bendish’s niece will buy me mercy?”

“I can’t say. The Commodore doesn’t have much of a reputation for it. The ‘Scourge of Piracy’– one doesn’t gain a name like that with an aversion to brutality.”

Nellie had heard the nickname before, of course. It had been as worrisome then as it was now – even though it was an unconscionable stretch to call a smuggler a pirate in the truest sense of the words. Still – it had not been so long since William Fly’s war against all humankind ended in his bones swaying in the breeze at Nix’s Mate – and Nellie shuddered, involuntarily. 

Aunt B saw her reaction, and passed her a grim smile. “There is the matter of _why_ such a man is here, which perhaps will clarify my ambivalence. Mr. Bendish tells me Norrington is in disgrace with the Admiralty at present – over the issue of ‘mercy.’”

“Because he would not offer it?”

“Because he did. Whether than means a sea-change, as Mr. Shakespeare would have it, or has encouraged him to return to form remains to be seen. But even if the family association will not purchase you clemency outright, it will give him pause – he knows his position here depends on the goodwill of William Shirley and Samuel Waldo and, I flatter myself, the Bendishes – and that will give you time.”

 _Time to do what you must_ , Nellie understood her to say. Grim, but what Aunt B had and had not said was correct. It was better, however unpleasant, to sit and plan for the worst eventualities than it was to have none and be left whistling for wind. If Aunt B wanted to offer her the shelter of a good name, far be it from Nellie to turn up her nose – for her own sake, and the sake of her own family.

Aunt B watched her process this, periodically glancing through the door to the hall clock. “We have not much time before the Commodore is expected, my dear, so permit me one last observations. Mr. Bendish wishes me to lay out the shape of the Governor’s current disputes to the Commodore, so anything true you wish to contribute on that score will be welcome, I imagine.” 

“Captain Treat’s dealings with Mr. Waldo?”

“Just so. Mr. Waldo has been loud in his complaints about illegal lumbering that Belcher has turned a blind eye to, and, because of his contracts with the Admiralty Norrington takes him seriously.”

Nellie pursed her lips and nodded.

“Good, my dear. We will manage this to your advantage.” Lydia rapped softly on the lintel and leaned into the room, reminding Aunt B that it was ten minutes to and she had asked to be notified. She smiled and pressed the cabinet key into Lydia’s hand, asked Nellie to help with the laying out of the china, and excused herself to the kitchen to manage the rest.

When unfamiliar voices sounded on the front walk, they both turned to the windows, Lydia nearly shaking with excitement. Nellie was not half so pleased, but pressed her young cousin’s hand anyway and smiled, arranging them both so that Lydia would be the first seen – and Nellie inconspicuously behind. _It is discretion_ , she told herself, and that could not be faulted. There was a knock – Lydia smiled – and Nellie held her breath, until Mercy swung open the door and –

“Ah, Commodore Norrington,” Aunt Bendish said, moving towards the hall with a whisper of skirts, “I’m so pleased you could come.”

* * *

_He’s here_. Nellie’s mind – a clatter of worries all of the morning and all of the night before – shuddered to a halt, abruptly empty for a half-second before the fear came rushing in. _Don’t be ridiculous_ , she snapped, half-listening to the exchange of pleasantries. _Aunt Bendish told you he would come, and you knew the justice of what she’s said. Calm yourself_. Thinking that if she wasn’t calm she could at least act it, Nellie exhaled slowly, and unclenched the fists she’d made in her skirts – just as the Commodore stepped into the formal parlor, and bowed at herself and Lydia.

She told herself she knew what to expect – she had seen him once – the day before, by the wharves, flanked by a column of scarlet-coated marines and Moreland, pale as dough and wringing his spindly hands. The party split the muttering crowd like a wedge in logwood, and Nellie had held her breath until he passed by the _Breeds Hill_. Where he was going after that, she didn’t much care. Captain Small had seen her panick and ushered her below decks and, with a degree of delicacy she hardly expected from the grizzled old shellback, stepped outside the cabin while she vomited her nerves into a bucket.

She doubted the Commodore wanted to hear that her first response to him was intense nausea.

Still, it was _something_ to hold on to, in the face of the most hated man on the Boston wharves. She noticed his coat first, as she had to assume was the intention – it had enough gold braid to set Boston’s plain-dressing ancestors to turning in their graves. Unbendingly correct or a popinjay? She couldn’t tell. He didn’t look nearly as severe, as he had the day before, and had Nellie been at all kindly-inclined towards him, she might have called him handsome. _Tall_ , though, was the best she could do at present – and that with a swift and loyal addendum: _but not as tall as Captain Treat was_. 

“My daughter, Miss Bendish.”

Lydia, was clearly awestruck by their august visitor, or perhaps only the gold braid that so liberally decorated his coat – still, she was her mother’s daughter, and dipped into an elegant curtsey. And that, of course, left her …

“Commodore Norrington,” said Aunt B, sure and elegant in her gesture, “May I make my niece, Mrs. Treat, known to you?”

The Commodore manners, Nellie begrudgingly admitted, were as flawless as his coat – as was his bow. Nellie responded to the best of her abilities.

His gaze dropped to her sober grey dress and black trim, before gesturing to the young man – boy, really, trailing behind him in a coat that was clearly not his own. “Mrs.Bendish. Miss Bendish. Mrs. Treat. Allow me to make one of my officers, Midshipman Jarsdel, known to you.”

The gangling boy – how much older than her Polly could he be? – made his bows and haltingly thanked the Bendishes for their hospitality.

Introductions concluded to her satisfaction, Aunt B gestured to her guests to be seated around the little table, stationing herself next to the service, “A fine day, Commodore. Mr. Smibert will have no cause to complain of the light this morning.” She handed the guest of honor the first cup with a beneficent smile.

“The first clear day in a week,” he agreed.

“Mrs. Treat is on her way to Mr. Smibert’s this morning as well.” Aunt B handed a cup off to Midshipman Jarsdel, who looked at the fine china with eyes as wide as the saucer, “Are you not, my dear?”

 _What was she playing at?_ Nellie made an appropriate reply, looking into her cup as though there were some answer in the swirling Bohea. “Not a sitting, sir,” she added, quick and brittle, not wanting to make Smibert seem careless in scheduling appointments, for she owed the man both gold and kindness, “He’s recently finished a portrait of my children – my family.”

“Mr. Smibert does fine work. Massachusetts is lucky that he has settled here.” 

“Yes,” agreed Nellie. She sipped her tea and shut the portrait out of her mind.

Aunt B nodded reassurance, before sitting down herself, and alluding to Nellie’s late husband’s dealings with Mr. Waldo in such a way that made clear to all why she was there. Nellie was grateful: Commodore Norrington’s gaze wasn’t any less sharp for proximity, and in the time between taking in her mourning and understanding her tenuous relationship to the matter at hand, there’d been something a little hard in his look. Had he thought – _hellfire!_ – had he thought Aunt B was throwing her at him?

The conversation had shifted to ongoing repairs for the _Garland_ , a subject about which Nellie had little to say. Lydia was no help, wrapped up in the presence of the Commodore as she was – and that left Nellie to watch the conversation over the rim of her cup. Aunt B was, well, Aunt B, ably picking up details to question and those which ought to be left alone. Being born a Treat helped; she might have been the only one of the extended family to have gone far from the water’s edge, but she could speak with the knowledge of her shipwright grandfather. Commodore Norrington appeared to appreciate that she spoke as easily of hackmattack and knees as she did of the weather and other social niceties. Midshipman Jarsdel, however, had begun to give up following the conversation – he was sneaking glances at Lydia, who had barely acknowledged his existence.

Perhaps Aunt B noticed, for she swayed the conversation from the _Garland_ to the _Garland_ ’s midshipmen’s berth, and thence back towards Nellie herself, so smoothly one hardly recognized how sharply the tiller had been turned town: “And how are Samuel’s preparations for school progressing?”

“My youngest – My son,” explained Nellie, to the expectant stares of Commodore and Mr. Jarsdel. “He’s of an age to start at the Latin School here, although – although without his father, it has been – difficult.”

Lydia set her dish aside. “Sam says you’ve been tutoring him.”

“I have. Though at times, I’ve merely been learning alongside him.”

“Good tutors, even in Boston, can be difficult to come by,” Aunt B observed, as though the problem were supply and not the Treat debts and Nellie’s precarious finances. One could hardly admit to that at the table, at any rate. “My husband, Mr. Bendish, speaks so poorly of the man he had before Cambridge, I really wouldn’t have believed he could do more than _Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres_.”

“I am lucky I have my Uncle’s learning to lean on.” said Nellie, loyally giving credit where it was due.

“When the Crown’s business permits it, of course.” Aunt B let the implication – that the Crown’s business did not normally permit it – steep in the air, before turning to the Commodore with a polite smile, “But I’m sure Latin has very little use in open water.”

“I’ve found that a facility with languages usually coincides with the same in numbers,” the Commodore said, with a respectful nod directed at Nellie, “If my officers wish to educate themselves, I have no objections. But it is not a usual part of our education. Would you agree, Mr. Jarsdel?”

Jarsdel, who had been caught staring at Lydia again, started. “Uh – no, sir. That is – Yes, sir, we’ve no Latin master aboard _Garland_.” He raised his dish of tea to his mouth quickly, evidently buying time. “But some of us, the midshipmen, had Latin in our schooling before we came to sea.”

Lydia looked like she would have been giggling, had she not been so well raised by her mother, and Nellie caught a flash of irritation (perhaps softened by fondness, perhaps not) on the Commodore’s face. She decided to take pity on the young gentleman. “Is this your first voyage, Mr. Jarsdel?”

 _Finally, an easy question_ , the gawky midshipman’s face seemed to say. “Yes, Mrs. Treat.”

He said nothing else, and Nellie was on the point of asking him if he missed his home, but thought better of it – Jarsdel, thirteen if he was a day, likely felt exposed enough as it was, having stammered through a response in front of his commanding officer and beautiful Lydia. Homesickness was a weakness he’d never admit to. She mildly observed, instead, “Such a long way from England. My first voyage, Mr. Jarsdel, was from Newport, in the colony of Rhode Island, to this city. It was only two days.”

Across the table, Lydia smiled, and Nellie knew she was recalling the rest of the story, well-loved by the larger Treat family: Nellie, only a Treat since the day before, and only “Nellie” for a hasty courtship, had spent the whole of the stormy voyage with a bucket between her knees. Thankfully, Aunt B stepped into the conversational breach with another welcoming smile, and an easy remark with a clear sequel, “Yes, that was when Mrs. Treat was first married.”

“You are not from Boston, then?”

“No, sir,” she replied, “I was born in Newport, and lived there until my marriage. You have not been there, I think?”

Commodore Norrington inclined his head, _No_. 

“Boston is larger, but Newport has its charms. It is the largest community in Rhode Island – though you will not hear the colony much spoken of in Massachusetts, unless it be by its more colorful nickname: ‘Rogues’ Island.’ The first English settlers had been exiled from Massachusetts for one reason or another, you see, and did not much care for the Massachusetts way of doing things.” Nellie reflected that the antipathy between colonies, however amusing to herself, might not have been the same to their English visitors, and gestured apologetically. “Ancient history, as life in the Americas goes, sirs.”

Aunt B, at the head of the table, gave her a grateful and reassuring look, before putting her hand to the tiller again, and deftly compared the contested histories of Massachusetts and Rhode Island with that of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, delicately omitting the name of Governor Belcher without actually avoiding discussing his conduct in the current border disputes between the two colonies. This had been the point of the genteel tea and conversation, and the Commodore focused intensely on Aunt B’s words. Lydia, concluding her part in the conversation was over, darted a quick look to establish the adults and Mr. Jarsdel were occupied elsewhere, rolled her eyes, and addressed herself to the dregs of her tea.

Nellie, less the eye-roll, did much the same. Evidently Uncle Bendish didn’t quite feel it within his power to give the lay of the land to the Commodore, but Aunt B! Nothing she had said could be deemed objectionable by a reasonable man (not that Governor Belcher was), all couched in indirect language and vague allusions as it was. When prompted, Nellie spoke of Mr. Waldo’s ongoing quarrel with Belcher over lumber in the Eastern Territories – apologetically adding that Captain Treat had once owned land there, and so she spoke from her memory of her husband’s interests.

True to Aunt B’s prediction, Commodore Norrington – did not smile, exactly, but something close to it – when she spoke what she knew of the Belcher-Waldo dispute, and what role William Shirley, of the Admiralty Court, played. So: whoever his friends were, in England – they knew enough to tell him how tottering Belcher’s hold on the governorship was growing. This wasn’t Nellie’s strongest suit – she stayed as far away from the notice of power as she could, and as her habits went it had served her well for some time. Her words, though, had their effect: when the clock struck the hour, the Commodore included Nellie in his thanks to the Bendishes and afforded her every courtesy – which Aunt B (Nellie noticed) observed with an approving eye. 

Aunt B was yet more gratified when Norrington recalled Nellie’s destination and offered to escort her there – which she wished she could refuse. The worst of her fear of the Commodore had dissipated, but Nellie reasoned it was her Aunt’s mediation which had made the tea pleasant, and did not think she could converse half so well on indifferent nothings between the Bendish house and Mr. Smibert’s Cornhill studio. _If this is the price of keeping myself above suspicion, I'll pay it_. “Thank you, Commodore,” she managed to say, before turning to farewell her family.

“God keep you, my dear. Mr. Bendish and I will call tomorrow.” Adjusting Nellie’s kerchief, Aunt B took her niece’s hands into her own and pressed warmly.

Nodding at Commodore Norrington’s polite gesture, Nellie Treat walked through the open door into the light of the afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the major players are all fictional, most of the characters mentioned in the background were real folks active in Massachusetts in the late 1730s - John Smibert, prominent portrait artist now most famous for his "The Bermuda Group"; Governor Jonathan Belcher, who held onto the governorship of Massachusetts through the 1730s despite mounting opposition over his dual governorship with New Hampshire, the blind eye he turned to illegal logging in present-day Maine, and general domineering; Samuel Waldo, a land-owner with significant lumber interests harmed by Belcher's actions; William Shirley, future Governor and Belcher's most prominent opponent. Thomas Hancock, whose cargo Norrington has a-historically seized, was one of the wealthiest men in Boston - and, more famously, John Hancock's uncle, from whom he inherited the majority of his business interests.


	2. The Morbid Fancies of a Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nellie and Commodore Norrington do not converse on the way to Mr. Smibert's studio, but she finds irritation with the man to be preferable to fearing his position. Aunt B has some intelligence regarding the Commodore's time in Port Royal which clarifies almost nothing immediately - only _why_ Aunt B seems so keen on presenting her as poor, bereaved Widow Treat.

_It was possible_ , thought Nellie, somewhere between the Bendish house and Mr. Smibert’s studio and struggling to maintain even the most disinterested conversation with the Commodore, _that a man could be too polite_. The sentiment itself was ridiculous. An hour before, Nellie had been nearly shaking with nerves, ready to bolt like a rabbit who’d seen the shadow of a hawk. She discarded the metaphor, thinking that if there were a natural counterpart to what had occurred, it had little to do with hiding and more to do with trickery and disguise – and she’d never heard of a rabbit wearing any coat but its own. A student of natural philosophy would know more; Sam might, and she would ask him as soon as she returned. 

If she, in her inconvenient irritation, didn’t say anything to give herself away.

Her mourning was the cause, of that she was sure. The grays and blacks were the first things Commodore Norrington had appeared to notice about her, and Aunt B had been at great pains to refer carefully and specifically to the late Captain Treat whenever appropriate. Had there _truly_ been a need to refer to the Captain’s resolve to sell off his land in the Eastern Territories to build a house for his wife and child? Nellie could have spoken about Waldo’s lumber without that needlessly sentimental introduction. She mentally cursed, realizing that not only had she been on the verge of running before tea – she’d been close to tears with relief, that Norrington would be too tangled up with an irate Thomas Hancock to have much energy for other seizures! Had Aunt B _planned_ that, too? 

A fruitless path of inquiry if she’d ever seen one, and the result was the same. Aunt B had painted a portrait of the poor Widow Treat, as sure as Mr. Smibert had done, and convinced the Commodore of her desolation unto uselessness. People never knew what to say to the bereaved. They tended to either recite platitudes or hurry away in the streets, as though mourning itself was catching. Since Norrington couldn’t very well run away from her – having offered to escort her in the first place! – now he was struggling to talk around what he’d evidently decided was her most significant trait. Or rather, now Nellie was struggling to talk around her mourning, with little help from her escorts.

“I went with my father to West Indies, once,” she tried, before asking where he had travelled in the Caribbean. 

“Port Royal,” he replied, and said no more. (Casting her gaze back on this conversation from later in her acquaintance with Commodore Norrington, at least this bit of reticence made sense.)

Midshipman Jarsdel, trailing along like an especially faithful puppy, was no help there – he’d admitted he’d never left England before, and Nellie had never been east of Barbados – and never to Port Royal itself, which she only vaguely knew of. Still, to walk in silence was as good as giving her worries the pulpit, and she had rather herself be thought stupid than anxious – the former tended to be assumed of women, and the latter might require an explanation. “Was there not a very great earthquake there, some time ago?”

The Commodore acknowledged there was, but it had occurred decades before his arrival.

“There was a terrible cataclysm here, not long ago. ’27, I think – my second year in Boston. It sounded like every carriage in Christendom was galloping from the Neck to the North End and back again – but there was little proper damage. Some cracks in the plaster, and frightened children.”

This was judiciously leaving out that she’d been huge with Polly at the time, and went into labor that day – Captain Treat covering his worry with a repeated joke: their child arriving early to see what the racket was all about surely indicated a mischievous temperament? He’d been right, but Nellie had sworn like the sailor’s daughter she was, and regarded the arrival of the midwife like the Second Coming. _Frightened children, ha!_ She’d had more fear than her daughter.

Still, the Commodore had made no response – whether that was because she’d left no room for one, or because he expected her to go on, Nellie wasn’t sure. _Catclysms_. There had to be other places for her mind to go that wasn’t related to her children or her business – or disasters, but perhaps that would be excused as the morbid fancies of a widow. Or maybe he’d take pity on her for having verbal polish on an equal level with his own.

Nellie bailed the barque of conversation, pivoting from the earthquake to the ridiculous stories that had cropped up in its wake – the Nantucket boatbuilder shoving off for open water lest he be lost when, like Atlantis, that island sunk. That, at least, was worth a snicker from Jarsdel, and the Commodore seemed to smile at the telling of it – and Jarsdel, empowered by the shadow of gaiety, asked about Nantucket. _That_ , at least lasted them until Mr. Smibert’s. 

Mrs. Smibert met them in the hall with a polite greeting, and swiftly shunted Commodore Norrington and Midshipman Jarsdel aside into her parlor, before passing Nellie on to Mr. Smibert and his books. Nellie shook his hand, feeling a little nervous and ashamed, relieved only by the thought that Captain Treat had paid half outright.

“I’m come with the balance, and my sincerest thanks for your,” she hesitated, thinking of there were no right words, “kind understanding in a difficult time.”

She withdrew the purse from her pocket, thinking that surely Mr. Smibert must have suspected her troubles, but a fiction like this would be agreeable to both of them. A bereaved widow emerges from her mourning to honorably pay her husband’s debts – surely _that_ role had been over-played at Drury Lane. And the result was the same: a debt had been paid.

Nellie could smile at that.

Mr. Smibert thanked her, businesslike, shifting the sum – with only a brief quirk of his brow, as though wanting to ask where she laid her hands on so much hard gold – into his own purse. Trade of all sorts brought surprising rewards home to Boston. Given the company in his wife’s parlor, it was better not to inquire.

And that would have been that, had Mr. Smibert not taken her by surprise. “Would you like to see the finished portrait, Mrs. Treat?”

“Yes,” she said, automatically, before the rest of her thoughts caught up. _Of course_ she wanted to see it – that’s what she was paying him for! But there was a difference in meaning in between wanting a thing and getting it, and she was not shocked to find within herself a thin current of fear at the idea of seeing the painting – fear the sight of it would swamp her like a terrible wave. If she had said no, she could have wept in the safety of her own parlor when it arrived – but she had said yes. And she was done crying in public.

Mr. Smibert led her through the hall back into the studio. For the second time in as many hours, Nellie’s mind fell abruptly silent. 

Folding and refolding her hands, Nellie barely knowing where to focus, noticing the little details in such a distracted fashion she began to feel a slightly mad. There was the bright red flash of the teething coral in baby Jenny’s fist – the light on the polish of the table’s corner – the book in Sam’s hand and the little flower in Polly’s. A ship, riding at anchor, seen through a fanciful window found nowhere in the studio. The smooth drape of Mary's best dress’s silk, and her own. Captain Treat’s hand on her shoulder.

“It is a very good likeness,” she heard herself saying, as though from a distance, before continuing on in courtesy. It was, perhaps, a great compliment to Mr. Smibert that the portrait could drag up such pain, but she had already paid him better than that. They spoke briefly about the arranging of delivery for later in the day, while the fine weather held. Nellie shook his hand, again, and left.

* * *

What occurred in the drowsy summer twilight, after Mary and Polly and Sam stood before the portrait in stoic silence, was a subject on which Nellie would not dwell. It was enough to sit on the settee, wiping tears away and murmuring love.

* * *

The next day broke drearily, mist spooling off the harbor in ribbons before the rain set in. Nellie and Susanna, working shoulder-to-shoulder in the kitchen, shared a tired look: more of the same, and all the problems the weather brought. _No sense in it keeping us from our daily bread_ , the look seemed to say, before they bent back to their tasks. Fresh from an almost decent night’s sleep, Nellie tried not to let the worries of yesterday swamp her, focusing instead on the snap of the coals, the wet mixing of the ginger cake dough, the patter of rain against her windows.

And yet, they returned. She’d felt a strange twinge, yesterday, walking home. Not solely for the future (for the first time in days, if not weeks), and not the safety of the portrait – but that it was _there_ , hanging in the studio, through the Commodore’s sitting. There was nothing in the likeness that showed her other than wife and mother. Perhaps that was it. Aunt B had made clear how valuable his pity could be, but she didn’t have to like it, the private pain shared between her and Mary and Polly and Sam left for a specific stranger to see. She ought to have arranged to bring the portrait home with her, but how was she to know how events would turn out at the Bendishes?

It was ridiculous – what could he see in that portrait but a once well-married woman?

 _Nothing_ , she told herself. _Nothing_.

She let Polly and Sam sleep later than they normally should have, the two of them having sat up in her bed late into the night and talking of those they dearly missed. Mary she roused with a hesitant knock. While her sister blinked and yawned, Nellie haltingly acknowledged that she had left Mary to manage the household yet again, and that Nellie had been asking – demanding, really – a great deal of her, of late. She didn’t wait for a response, but left a length of brilliant green ribbon on her sister’s dressing table as she hurried out.

The rain continued until midmorning.

Reasoning the best antidote to sorrow was work that got the ire up, Nellie instructed Polly and Sam on their letters and lettering for a numbing period of time, before finally taking pity and switching to their numbers and tables. This lasted until midday, when she sent them to choose a book from the shelves to read quietly, while she spoke to Susanna in the kitchen and prepared for the Bendishes’ visit. Mary, who had been sitting in the murky light of the parlor’s windows to ply her needle, poked her head into to remind Nellie – who of course had forgotten, in her troubles – that she was going with friends to call on the Winships, and would be leaving as soon as they arrived.

“We’ll miss you at tea,” said Nellie, feeling the gift of the ribbon to be wholly inadequate now.

Mary, teasing, made her promise to give her portion of the cake to Sam. When her friends arrived shortly thereafter, Mary disappeared out the door in a whirl of skirts and ribbons, missing the arrival of Nellie’s relatives by a scarce half-hour.

At the sound of familiar voices in the hall, Polly and Sam cried out their greetings, and hurried to embrace Aunt and Uncle Bendish, while Nellie stood smiling by the table.

“Mary’s gone out,” she apologized, “Miss Corcellis and Mrs. Hayling came to call, on their way to the Winships.”

Uncle Bendish remarked that the weather wasn’t particularly fine for visiting, but their Lydia had other social obligations, as well. Nellie shifted one of the chairs aside as they came to the table, while her relations went to the newly-installed portrait.

“Smibert had done fine work,” said Uncle Bendish, praising the sheen on the mahogany table, the luster of Captain Treat’s best coat.

Aunt B’s praises were more subdued, more personal. “It is good to see him again.”

This felt dangerously sentimental, and Nellie was grateful that Susanna’s impeccable timing interrupted a longer conversation about the portrait, and that she only had to endure condolences tucked into the corners of the polite smiles. Gesturing to her children to sit with a hand on their shoulders, Nellie began the process of steeping, listening to Uncle Bendish inquire about Polly’s and Sam’s lessons and how the preparations for Mary’s upcoming wedding were proceeding.

“Well,” said Nellie, which was preferable to actually discussing it – mentioning instead how Mary’s new best dress was progressing, a subject sure to force a change of direction after suitable compliments to her sister’s skill had been paid.

Uncle Bendish obliged, and waited for Nellie to finish pouring before beginning in earnest. “I must thank you for your part in yesterday’s conversation. Commodore Norrington sent a note in gratitude of yours and Mrs. Bendish’s,” he paused for a moment, as though weighing how much he could admit to knowing and still claim impartiality, “discreet thoroughness.”

Nellie thanked him, graciously. “It was nothing, sir.”

Uncle Bendish’s features expressed doubt, but he was too polite to say it.

“Aunt B truly did most of the work. I spoke mostly of ancient history and Sam’s Latin, if only to give the Commodore’s young officer something to contribute.”

Sam’s grave expression split into a shy smile. Uncle Bendish, seeing it, inquired after his progress, and they spoke of his lessons over the cake, until the sure hand of Aunt B redirected the conversation towards news regarding the Royal Navy, concluding with a pronouncement that such talk would prove boring to her husband.

Uncle Bendish accepted the hint with a genial smile. “Come, Samuel. Let’s have a look at your Lily’s.”

When the door swung shut behind them, Aunt B smiled and turned to Nellie. “Well, my dear. How did you find Smibert?”

“Pleased to be paid. He seems happy with his new commission.”

Aunt B gestured for her to continue, though Nellie wasn’t sure what else there was to say. “The Commodore is a prominent man, whatever his standing with the Admiralty?”

“What was he like?” asked Polly, over her embroidery.

“Taciturn,” replied Nellie.

Polly frowned. Her loyalties held with Boston, but she was at an age when, like Nellie before her, everyone and everything connected to the sea was fascinating. Clearly, Polly felt that her mother was holding out on her. 

Aunt B took pity on the both of them. “The Commodore didn’t speak much to your mother, dearest, I’m afraid Mr. Bendish asked me to monopolize the conversation.”

“What’s he like, Aunt Bendish?”

“He spent much of his career in the West Indies, apparently – though he never said as much. Your mother’s right. He has little to say for himself. Did you glean anything from your conversation with him, Elinor?”

“Not particularly.”

Polly frowned again.

“He has impeccable manners.”

A sigh, deep and troubled, from her daughter. Clearly Nellie was the most worthless observer in Christendom, for how could she converse with a _Commodore of the Royal Navy_ for over an hour and have nothing to report?

“Really,” said Aunt B, consolingly, “the conversation was a little focused on … Massachusetts affairs. He came to Mr. Bendish and myself for advice, and I obliged at length over tea.”

“Well, did he listen?”

“Yes.”

Polly nodded. “That’s something.”

It was, but Nellie was not in the habit of thinking that listening to Aunt B was an unusual proposition – rather the opposite. A body was a fool to turn down such quality intelligence and advices. Still, she agreed with her daughter, and said so.

Aunt B, though, had not finished with that line of conversation, though she waited until after Nellie had refilled her cup. “What did you and the Commodore speak of, on you way to Smibert?”

“Precious little. I could not engage him on any normal or polite topic, so I rattled a bit about Boston and its history.” This seemed like a positive way of reframing her digressions about the Cataclysm of 1727. “Really, I spent much of the time talking to his Midshipman, Mr. Jarsdel.”

“Did he have anything to say?” _Any adventures_ , Polly meant.

“Not much. He’s on his first voyage, dearest, he’s not much older than you.”

Polly made a few disgusted stitches, looking at her roses like so many dead frogs. _Or worse_ , Nellie thought. Polly liked frogs.

Smiling over the edge of her cup, Aunt B gently cleared her throat and steered the conversation back towards the denizens of the HMS _Garland_. She had not had the chance to impart all she knew yesterday, before the arrival of her visitors, and Nellie wanted to hear it. 

“I shall divide what I have to say into what I know, and what is rumor – and do my best to judge what is credible and what is not. I suspect you’ve requested your men keep an ear open to what is said of him in the Caribbean, so, in the coming months, we shall see what else comes ashore. What is certain: he is the second son of Admiral Laurence Norrington and Catherine Byng – some cousin of the late Admiral Byng, says Mr. Bendish. He was stationed in the West Indies until two years ago, and his chief patron while there was the Governor of Jamaica, recently recalled to some other position within Mr. Walpole’s government, whose daughter he was briefly engaged to. One gets the sense that his was a rapidly ascending star, until ’36. That is all I would swear before a judge, worldly or otherwise.”

Nellie nodded, though the man’s genealogy and connections were not much help to her without Aunt B and Uncle Bendish’s direct intervention. Glancing at Polly, she bit down a smart remark about knowing with certainty that he rationed words like hardtack and salt pork on a long voyage. She gently prodded her aunt to continue.

“Oh, much of what’s normally rumored of sailors and officers. Tales of glory, tales of debauchery. Nothing worth repeating in specific on that score. There is a more … delicate rumor, which I cannot think the man would be thankful to hear has followed him, but, alas.” _Public life was public life_ , she seemed to say. Aunt B looked speakingly at the empty kettle and then to Polly, who, with a sigh, set aside her embroidery and went to the kitchen to find Susannah.

“Well?”

“His engagement, my dear.”

“What of it? Did she die?” Nellie half-suspected she had – if only from the way Aunt B had presented the Widow Treat to Commodore Norrington. She would almost be obliged to be kind to him, if that was the case! Widows and widowers and those who had almost-been had a special kind of bereavement in common, apart from the loss of whatever love had existed. 

“Mm. No, that would just be another tragic story. The engagement was broken – I’m not quite sure how or why, because there appears to be quite a few different versions.”

Aunt B, lowering her voice still further, sketched out the various rumors and which, to her, seemed closest to the truth.

Nellie paid attention, but badly wanted to ask what it mattered, how the Commodore’s engagement had ended – it seemed to have been a cause of pain, and that was that. She tried to piece what she knew of the man together with these stories – a thing meant nothing without context, without setting. “How close,” she started, frowning, “How close to – what he did to put himself in disgrace?”

“Impossible to say with any precision. Close.”

“Did the one cause the other?”

Her aunt raised an eyebrow and smiled, approvingly. “The pertinent question indeed, my dear, but –” 

In came Susannah and Polly with a fresh kettle for their tea, and that was the end of that.

Just as well. Commodore Norrington was setting himself up as her chief opponent in Boston’s way of business, and she would have to know at least some parts of the man in order to evade his grasp. But this? Broken engagements and matters of the heart were the kind of secrets she hated to deal in – it made her feel like a spy or intriguer or blackmailer, to use those rumors to her own advantage. _As she was now_.

Nellie would have been uneasy but grimly resigned to worry about the previous topics of discussion, if only to keep her mind from wandering towards her shipping woes. But, as she steeped the next pot and listened to Polly plead with Aunt B to tell her if it was true the Commodore had been called ‘The Scourge of Piracy’ and what had he done to deserve it, the talk bent back towards rumor and stories of the Caribbean. Aunt B, normally so sure-footed in her conversation, began to look a little strained, and lapsed into a significant pause before resurfacing with her last news:

“I cannot think this last set of rumors credible at all. I’m sure Captain Treat heard less fanciful sea stories from drunken sailors. Only … well. As rumor goes, it has been persistent. Perhaps there is some meaning in it.” Aunt B fidgeted – actually _fidgeted_ – with her teacup for a moment, frowning deeply. “There was a – a battle, in between British forces and pirates, towards the end of Commodore Norrington’s time in Jamaica. I recall an item about it, in the _Gazette_ – as violent as anything in the bad old days of Teach and Vane and Low.” 

Nellie frowned herself. She couldn’t account for her aunt’s trouble – sea stories were sea stories, nothing to trouble the mind over. Who hadn’t heard tales of waves tall as mountains, horrible monsters from the depths, ghost-ships, and the like? As august a man as Cotton Mather might have believed some of them, but not her. _And not Aunt B_ , she thought, troubled. 

Polly, however, was delighted at this dark turn, and had abandoned even the pretense of her embroidery work. Nellie coughed meaningfully at her daughter, which seemed to shake the rest loose.

“The wharfside story was that the pirates were – revenants? Like ‘corpses raised from their graves.’ ”

“Ghosts!” exclaimed Polly.

“Ridiculous,” said Nellie.

“Yes,” said Aunt B, shaking her head as though to cast off cobwebs or sleep, “But that is what’s been said on the docks.”

Nellie instinctually refused to believe it. “Men said Edward Teach was the Devil, and he still bled like the rest of them.” 

Aunt B agreed, saying that there had been hangings in Port Royal afterwards, and firmly changed the topic to Polly’s embroidery work – despite Polly’s sour frown and determined attempts to talk of piracy – which kept until Sam and Uncle Bendish returned.

* * *

Nellie considered the matter closed, though she privately wondered, through the evening, how a man could evoke a decayed corpse. Leprosy would do it, she thought – casting a mournful eye on her pork supper, happily handing it over to Polly and Sam when they asked. Starvation, maybe. The French disease in its last stages left terrible sores, looking like the flesh was rotting from the bone. Poorly healed wounds. Frostbite. Death marked a man in so many ways, but a whole crew, all the same?

Some artifice, then. If Teach used slow match to evoke the Infernal, then there had to be some way. How had it been done? And how had Commodore Norrington been fooled?

She didn’t dream of it, precisely, being too worn down for the state, though she woke feeling uneasy, like she had drunk too much or eaten too many sweets. Thinking of that unsettling rumor had only staved off worries regarding the sticky cargo of the _Breeds Hill_ and the hawk-eyed Commodore, and they returned to bedevil her through the next few days, until a folded note arrived from Captain Small with a short, blunt message: _It is finished_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lily's" - mentioned by Uncle Bendish as he and Sam go off to discuss his lessons - refers to one of William Lily's (a 15th/16th C English scholar) Latin grammars, which were, so far as I can tell, reprinted and used up through the 18th C. I'm not an expert, though! I'm happy to be proven wrong.
> 
> A major shout-out to spacecasewriter13/theonlyredcar for her continued encouragement and commentary! This wouldn't be possible without you. I don't know how you should feel about that.


	3. sed Victa Catoni

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commodore Norrington reflects on what's brought him to Boston, his obligations (both professional and social), and why Widow Treat's conversation seems to revolve around Latin grammar. Midshipman Jarsdel continues to be (un)helpful.

Every day in the past week – following the single fine day of the sitting – had brought the same miserable weather, and every evening Commodore James Norrington had dutifully checked what Lieutenant Groves had equally dutifully recorded in the _Garland_ ’s log. It made for dull reading. No course or heading, no lines drawn in and erased by the Atlantic, only repairs, grey water and grey skies, and bells: the _Garland_ ’s (the _Teal_ being, if Nibley hadn’t gone astray, still off Cape Ann), their dozens of neighbors riding at anchor, and, above all, the church bells of the pious city.

 _Pious_ , yes, that was how it’d been described to him time and again: by seamen caught up in a hot press, longing for home; by blank-faced captains scudding south for molasses and sugar, putting into Port Royal only after trying in Port-au-Prince or Saint Eustatius or Havana – or whatever port they could find out of the Empire’s sight; by Admiral Bledsoe most recently, laying out a course for him to follow back to Whitehall’s good graces. Boston, pious Boston, its piety a charm against any accusations of greed or insubordination. Named for the Lincolnshire port, of course, more fond of Jean Calvin than the Stuarts. History might have proved them right, there, but he couldn’t help but regard its New World cousin with suspicion. He’d been _requested and required_ to take command of the _Garland_ , and with the late Captain Munro of the _Teal_ , proceed to Boston, there to defend commerce from foreign depredation (the Spanish? the French? Their own colonial cousins? The Lord preserve him, pirates?), and – in language so pointedly vague as to be useless – provide all requested aid to officials for the enforcement of customs and duties.

That had been _months_ ago. And what had he to show for it?

A headache of the same duration, Norrington thought dryly. Munro dead of some internal complaint just west of Land’s End, casks of rotted salt junk, a punishing storm mid-crossing - and all that before he’d made himself known to Governor Belcher. Bledsoe had warned him about colonial politics, of course he had. And yet, there was a difference between being told the lay of the land, and arriving to see it for himself. _Difficult_ , said Bledsoe. Might as well say the mires of Dartmoor and Exmoor were inconveniences. A half-hour in the company of the domineering Governor was enough to convince him of how fortunate he had been in Port Royal, not only with Governor Swann’s trust, but with that man’s ability to foster geniality and coalition. Every man had enemies, true, but Belcher took spiteful pride in rolling the apple of discord among them, secure in his own power and connections. And that had been his conduct before Norrington seized Thomas Hancock’s cargo …

Norrington, conscious of the stares of his crew as he and his officers waited for the _Garland_ ’s rickety little gig to be readied, resisted the urged to pinch the bridge of his nose. He had his miser’s horde of bad fortune, but it wouldn’t decrease from his counting it. Better not dwell on all that had occurred since Portsmouth, and best not dwell at all on the handful of years before that in the bargain.

“Gig’s ready, sir,” said Greene, miserably. The second lieutenant had volunteered to take command of the _Garland_ while the other officers attended a gathering at the Bendish household, though Norrington would have, had he been a betting man, wagered that some game of chance had been played in the wardroom for the dubious honor. Groves, his first, was trying not to look too pleased at this turn of events – what further proof was needed?

“Thank you, Mr. Greene,” Norrington said him mechanically, adding the usual courtesies about command and the time he expected to be done ashore, while the others clambered down into the boat. Midshipman Jarsdel, gawky and lowliest, awkwardly preceded them and sat as correctly as possible – as though even the ghost of a slouch would get him drummed out of His Majesty’s Navy. The knot of older midshipmen sorted itself next, then Lieutenants Tollemache and Groves – and himself. As soon as Norrington settled, Bleeker barked out the order to cast off – and thence towards Boston’s Long Wharf.

He had little expectation that he would enjoy himself at this party. Between his current infamy along Boston’s dozens of wharves, and his own reticence, Norrington doubted how welcome he could ever truly be – even among those he presumed to be his allies. John Bendish had, at the end of their first meeting, issued a caution over port – port which (Mr. Bendish coughed into his fist) _likely_ had not had the proper duties paid – that almost every soul in Boston smuggled or profited by it, because the opportunity was there. Now that Britain was endeavoring to close that avenue, many would, eventually, accept that this was a part of business.

In this, Mr. Bendish had said with a significant look, he would be aided by the saber-rattling and calls for war with Spain – those unable to profiteer off provisioning would like the disruptions of hostilities even less than paying their duties. And Norrington’s reputation had preceded him, smoothing part of the way. Boston merchants had as much love for pirates as their West Indian counterparts, and he’d have some gratitude for his deeds in Port Royal.

It remained to be seen how correct that was, but no less a person than Weatherby Swann (Governor no longer, but Norrington had known him as such for eight years) had told him Bendish could be trusted. Well, he would soon see how right John Bendish was, the company in that man’s parlor a rough test of the shape of things to come. 

Norrington was jostled from his thoughts by the hollow thud of the gig against the wharf, and he paused at the top of the ladder to survey the waterfront, now much quieter as darkness descended. They set off for the Bendish home.

Days of rain and damp heat had done little for the thick smell of the city, and less for the streets, reminding Norrington of nothing so much as how Maitland, the rector of his youth, would stuff his best stockings in his pockets when walking, and surreptitiously change before entering his parents’ home. Alas, even a disgraced Commodore of the Royal Navy couldn’t be seen to stand in a Boston dooryard and switch out cotton for silk. The thought was almost worth a laugh, and he almost wanted to, thinking that while his men might have come for the opportunity for society, he had weighty matters to discuss with his hosts and their friends. Groves must have caught a shadow of it, for his first cocked his head and raised a brow in the twilight. He shook his head. _Later_ , if at all.

They heard the merriment at the Bendish home before they saw it – light and sound spilled out of the open windows, the some delicate music jousting with talk and laughter. Mrs. Bendish, at the door, greeted them handsomely. “Commodore Norrington,” said she, with a deep curtsey, “Welcome, once more, to our home.”

She had not yet had the pleasure, she continued, of the acquaintance of his other officers, and Norrington introduced them in turn: Groves, his first; Tollemache, his third. The party of midshipmen – Rodd, Lawless, Sandys, and Jarsdel – bowed in turn, with gawky Jarsdel cracking a wide smile at being remembered. Mrs. Bendish apologized that her husband was engaged with Mr. Hutchinson on an unrelated matter, and brought the naval party into the parlor he had sat in only a week before.

“You shall have much to talk about, this evening,” she said quietly, behind her fan, “But let me introduce your men to some of our families, first.”

* * *

Norrington glanced up when he heard new voices in the hall, in time to catch the entrance of Mrs. Treat and another, younger woman – the girl in the portrait, he thought. The widow’s familiar sober greys brought a moment of relief, but not an unshadowed one. He’d thought more about what the widow had said about land and lumber in the contentious Eastern Provinces than the woman herself, save for a few moments in his first sitting. Mind wandering while Jarsdel stumbled over Vergil’s _‘the hidden rocks th’ Ausonian sailors knew,’_ he’d found himself staring at the formal Treat portrait: weathered-faced patriarch, brass telescope in one hand, children with books and flowers and coral, young woman who must have been sister to one, and the conspicuously-well-dressed wife and mother. In all respects, save the invisible dimensions death had leant it, a portrait of a prosperous family meant to announce their prosperity, such as he’d seen in parlors and halls all around the Atlantic. 

Still, he’d admitted to himself, there _was_ something a little unusual in the composition. It was Mrs. Treat who looked out of the portrait, not the late Captain, with an expression of such warm satisfaction as he could hardly imagine on the widow’s face now. _Lost hopes_ , had come the unbidden thought – Norrington had looked away then, preferring the austere scowl of long-dead Governor Endicott to the beautifully-painted cenotaph.

“Commodore?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said quickly, hoping that he’d heard Groves correctly, and his first had asked if he’d wanted refreshment.

Norrington half-monitored them as they made a circuit of the room, while keeping most of his attention on his conversational partners – first Mrs. Bendish, who was suggesting that a man in his position might find it _beneficial_ to host a party in honor of the Hanoverian ascension in early August.

“You will have to plan around Governor Belcher’s own festivities, of course,” she was saying, with an air of distraction, as though this was as important as an arrangement of daisies, “But no one in Boston could say it is improper for the officers of the Royal Navy to honor our King.”

She said a few words more about the relative merits of assembly spaces in the city versus the comparative novelty of the _Garland_ ’s deck, before excusing herself to attend to some other matter.

Mr. Hayling, brother to one of Mr. Waldo’s fellow landowners in the Eastern Territory, next claimed his attention, speaking of Governor Belcher’s mismanagement – much of which he had already heard, but Hayling seemed inclined to at least a show of friendliness, and that was not to be alienated. 

“We are glad to have the Navy here, sir, and for the difficulties Belcher has caused to be laid squarely before him,” said Hayling, shaking his hand.

Truthfully, neither the Admiralty nor Admiral Bledsoe had said much of the lumber contracts, but Norrington – whatever the former might have said – was not a fool, and recognized an advantage when he saw it. “I have made the Admiralty’s position on the importance of such contracts clear to the Governor,” he replied.

That, and he was sensible that much of the lumber that had gone into the _Garland_ ’s repairs had come from that part of the province.

Mr. Hayling was glad to be heard, and spoke a little further on the history of the Eastern Territory, answering what questions Norrington had about the types and quality of timber there to be found, and what defenses existed to shield the coast from depredation by sea.

“Very little,” Hayling concluded, on the latter point of inquiry, before excusing himself to attend his wife.

Groves re-appeared then, bearing two glasses and a bemused expression: “If we are not careful, sir, Lieutenant Tollemache will propose to some faultless young lady by the end of the night.”

“If he won’t mind himself, tell him it is my command that he minds young Mr. Jarsdel,” Norrington replied, taking his glass from Groves and feeling the beginnings of a headache.

There were several more next: merchants and ship-owners made anxious by the initial seizure of Hancock’s cargo some weeks ago, and the increased scrutiny of incoming vessels in the time since then. If they had any animosity, they took care not to show it to him, and Norrington recalled what Swann had written, before he had sailed from England – _You represent the Crown, and it is imperative that you signal to the people of Boston that you only mean to defend the rule of law_. In the bad old days, just after the _Dauntless_ ’s crossing, the people of Port Royal had not shied away from dealing with pirates, whether that be supplying them or fencing stolen goods; it was a clear enunciation of the law, coupled with the determination of Commodore Pardy (and then his own) that such laws would be enforced without preference or prejudice, that brought Port Royal to understand the new way of things.

Of course, he recalled, many had only apparently obeyed – hiding the illicit dealings that had once been carried out under the shadow of Fort Charles. Norrington thought of what John Bendish had said at that first meeting, and silently wondered how many of the men that he had spoken to intended to do the same?

But he had not much time for this line of thought, for Mrs. Treat and the younger woman – having finished conversing with Mrs. Bendish – were moving to politely greet him.

“Mrs. Treat. Good evening.”

The widow rose from her curtsey, smiling politely. “Commodore. May I make my sister, Miss Mary Coggeshall, known to you?”

Norrington repeated the courtesy for Miss Coggeshall, who fairly beamed, thanking him for being kind to her sister the week before. “You are out in full numbers this evening! Mrs. Bendish introduced us to many of your very gentlemanly officers.”

He took the compliment to his officers’ deportment as it was offered, and in return paid a general comment to Boston – a compliment Miss Coggeshall acknowledged but barely minded, for she caught sight of friends entering the room and hastily excused herself, apologies trailing behind her like her green ribbon.

Mrs. Treat looked pained. “I hope you won’t mind my sister’s manner. She is recently engaged to Mr. Winship, who is just over there.”

The way she say it – ‘engaged’ – like it was a spun from glass – was that out of deference to his own past? He’d have been a fool to think that wouldn’t follow him here, but a wave of resentment caught him, just the same. How long would it be, how far would he have to travel, so that story was no longer one of the first things whispered about him? Norrington glanced down, not wholly trusting himself to keep a blank face, and – _oh_. Mrs. Treat was discreetly fidgeting with a black-enameled ring. 

_Of course_. “Let me offer my congratulations, then.”

“I thank you, on her behalf.”

“Will she – will she not be married from her home?”

The widow looked confused for a moment, before swiftly realizing what he’d meant. “Oh, Newport, you mean? No, no – Boston’s been her home almost as long as it’s been mine.”

Surely there was a story there, but he stepped around it by inquiring after the date, to which she replied, glanced purposefully around the room, and, with a kind of determined cheer, pivoted the conversation away. “I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Jarsdel again this evening,” she said, “When Aunt Bendish introduced some of your officers to us. He seems very grateful for the social exercise.”

He replied something about young gentlemen needing society, after so long and difficult a crossing.

“I suspected as much! I have never spent more than three weeks at sea, and I began to feel a little wild by the end of that trip. If three weeks could steal my legs away from me, I can only imagine what more six or eight could rob me of, especially if I were a nervous young man on his first voyage.”

“It was a trying crossing.”

“So my Uncle Bendish told me.”

“How did Mr. Jarsdel comport himself?”

“He inquired after my Latin,” she said with a smile, “Mr. Jarsdel said that he’d taken up a volume of Caesar’s commentaries but found the grammar difficult. I could be of little assistance to him; Sam and I have only just begun Cato’s _Moral Distichs_. Apparently Mr. Jarsdel has escaped that particular instruction from William Lily.”

“Unusual,” he replied, thinking that what he knew of Jarsdel’s schooling, conveyed to him via his lieutenants’ reports, seemed eccentric at best.

“So I’ve been given leave to understand. But I cannot be too critical; there are too many Catos and I’m unable to keep them apart from each other.”

“You have been confusing Lily’s Cato and Addison’s?”

“It is not in my power to command success, where the ancients are concerned,” Mrs. Treat paraphrased, “and what’s worse, I am not sure I deserve it. There is Cato the Younger, which implies the existence of an Elder, and a Mr. Cato who has left his wisdom in the form of instructive couplets to trip the unwary, and yet another Cato – found in Mr. Hancock and Mr. Henchman’s catalogues of imported works – who perhaps wrote some lines that, then again, Vergil perhaps had written. It has been very amusing for my Sam and Uncle Bendish! I imagine that I ought to have learned Stoic resignation from Mr. Addison’s Cato, but I am here, in my Aunt’s parlor, giving a list of complaints as long as the chandler’s bill.”

She spoke to amuse, he assumed – and, at any rate, he had suffered through enough ablatives and locatives in his youth that was amused. “You paint a bleak picture of classical study, Mrs. Treat.”

“I am only frustrated with it – I had little education in the subject beyond what could be gleaned from Shakespeare, or the use of a Roman name as a bit of black cloth, a mask, in the papers.”

“Shakespeare’s _Caesar_ must not have been much help.”

“No, for that was another Cato.” Mrs. Treat frowned, “But I think I must keep the thing in perspective. There may be as many Catos in a library as there are sloops in Boston harbor, but we’ve our own kind of disobliging repetition with names. – Ah! But here is Mr. Hutchinson, come to speak with you. Thank you for your conversation, Commodore Norrington. Good evening!”

* * *

Owing to this conversation and the one previous, Norrington began to associate Latin grammar with the Widow Treat, in spite of her stated frustration with the topic. In this he was aided by the studies of Mr. Jarsdel. The midshipman, in his odd way, was determined to return the widow’s courtesy by a dogged reading of the _Commentarii de Bello Gallico_ , and Norrington spent several night's middle watches pacing the quarterdeck, his footfalls punctuated by muttered recitations.

He told himself firmly he did not mind it – even when _his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere_ came drifting aft in the deepest part of the night, when he was already inclined to think of the _greater prosperity_ and _lengthier impunity_ he’d been granted in Port Royal – and how far his hopes had fallen. Norrington could not do anything with that (nothing he had not already done, in past two years), and so he had done his best to fold it away, and resolved to speak jokingly of Mr. Jarsdel’s battles with Gallic chieftains to Mrs. Treat when next he saw her.

Norrington did not think he had not long to wait, for after the Bendishes’ gathering, Mr. Corcellis sent a message that he would be honored by the presence of the _Garland_ ’s officers at a party of his own, and after that the Hutchinsons, and so on. At the Corcellis house, he was too much engaged with the concerns of Mr. Corcellis and his cousin, Peter Fanueil, to speak to the widow at any great length about it; at the Hutchinsons, Mrs. Treat was occupied making much of Mrs. Hutchinson (a distant cousin, the widow mentioned in passing) and infant daughter, who had just begun to babble and smile.

It was at the Bendishes’ again, the day after he’d impounded another cargo of molasses and sugar – the _Pequot_ , Captain Sargent, two weeks out of Havana – that Norrington finally exchanged more than two polite words with her again.

“Commodore,” Mrs. Treat said, a thin, strained look on her face, “Good evening. My Aunt and Uncle said we might expect the pleasure of your company.”

He returned the courtesy, though a little concerned by her look. “Will Miss Coggeshall join you this evening?”

“Ah, no. She has a sick headache.”

“I am sorry to hear it.” 

Mrs. Treat rallied a little from his words. “You’re kind to say it, sir. I fear the better part of her malady is spending too many hours at her needle, even on such a poor day as today, in preparation of her marriage.”

“The weather has been bleak,” he agreed, “I’ve been given leave to understand this is – unusual?”

“Yes, a bit,” she replied, “There will be –”

What she was about to say would remain a mystery, for Lieutenant Greene interrupted, as politely as possible, on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Phips, which meeting held him for some time.

Mrs. Treat was still a little drawn when he saw her next, worrying at her fan after speaking with Miss Corcellis. He greeted her again, and apologized for the interruption, and bade her continue with what she was saying.

“It was nothing – I was only about to observe there will be sermons about this unceasing rain. We are accustomed to looking for the hand of God everywhere here, in John Calvin’s New England.” She shook her head, “But I am afraid I’m talking nonsense. You and your officers have come here for society, and after Mr. Phips had claimed you, I cannot think that there is much other business to occupy you all the evening. You will have to join the entertainments.”

He followed her gesture, to where Mr. Bendish and friends sat, talking and – so it looked to him – playing whist.

“Cards? I had been told not to expect,” he paused, thinking of the right word, “frivolity here. In Boston.”

Amusement quirked Mrs. Treat’s otherwise strained expression. “Ah. So even before this evening, you had heard a great deal about Boston’s piety? City of dour Roundheads and regicides?”

“Something along those lines, yes.”

“Perhaps it was true a score or two of years ago, I could not say for certain. For all Reverend Prince’s sermons, we are not the flinty generations of our past – if you asked a man on Long Wharf whether he had rather save twenty pounds or his soul, he’d make sure he got it in gold.” 

“You do not approve?”

There was a calculating look about the widow, but it was swiftly pulled under by an expression of mischief. “Hardly! When I was first married, Commodore, I would have settled for ten. Now, you will please excuse me, for I promised Mary to speak with my Aunt.”

Norrington watched her go, the now-familiar folds of her grey dress standing out against the bright silks and cottons of the rest of the room. He still hadn’t spoken to her of Jarsdel, or Caesar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am both deeply sorry for the reality-induced delay, and for who I am as a writer, as evidenced by this chapter.
> 
> Latin has been a pernicious weed, creeping all over this chapter: Jarsdel is reading from John Dryden's 1697 translation of Virgil's _Aeneid_ ; Nellie refers again to William Lily's instructional texts on Latin grammar, including one with the absolute doorstopper of a title, given as follows _Catonis Disticha Moralia, et Lilii Monita Paedagogica: or, Cato's Moral Distichs, and Lily's Paedagogical Admonitions, With the Following Improvement in a Method Intirely New_. That Cato is indeed distinct from all other Catos mentioned in this chapter, and Nellie's frustration is unfortunately cribbed from my own brief and lurid days studying the damn language. Joseph Addison's _Cato_ , which Nellie paraphrases back at Norrington is perhaps more associated with the American Revolution - Nathan Hale was supposed to have cribbed his last words from the play - but certainly would have been in circulation in British North America by the 1730s. Why would a text about tyranny interest the tired Widow Treat? A question the good Commodore should perhaps be asking himself.
> 
> Jarsdel, bless his little heart, has decided to throw himself into Caesar's _Commentarii de Bello Gallico_ / _Commentaries on the Gallic War_ \- and has been speeding right along! The line Norrington catches Jarsdel reciting is, in full, _Consuesse enim deos immortales, quo gravius homines ex commutatione rerum doleant, quos pro scelere eorum ulcisci velint, his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere._ \- from the McDevitte and Bohn translation, _for the immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances._
> 
> Real Person Watch: Peter Faneuil, (Daniel) Henchman, Reverend Prince, Lieutenant Governor Phips and Mr. Hutchinson & Mrs. Hutchinson are historic personages; Mrs. Margaret Sanford Hutchinson is the grand-daughter of Rhode Island's Governor Peleg Sanford (the connection to Nellie's fictional branch of Rhode Island's Coggeshall familiar is similarly manufactured!) Mr. Thomas Hutchinson is much better and more infamously known for his later political career as Lieutenant Governor and later Governor of Massachusetts in the 1760s/1770s, whose house was nearly destroyed during the Stamp Act protests of August 1765.


	4. Debts of Gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nellie receives three letters from her brothers and writes one in return, Commodore Norrington catches one of the Widow Treat's captains smuggling, the literary and moral merits of both Mr. Cato's _Moral Distichs_ and Virgil's _Aeneid_ are gone over, culminating in a watery rescue which has no literary allusions.

Nellie looked up at the cloudless July sky, feeling the salt water prickling on her skin as it began to dry in the heat, the unforgiving flat of the wharf against her back, how heavy it all was: her waterlogged stays and stockings and chemise, every limb and line of her body wrung out. There was clatter and noise, of course, but it wasn’t _there_ – 

_Not in the way that it really mattered_ , she was thinking – 

All muffled, as though the whole of Long Wharf had been wrapped up in cotton wool, or stuffed in shavings.

 _Exempli gratia_ : (came the next thought, the voice of Sam mimicking Mr. Bishop’s legal pronouncements) Captain Hendricks was saying something from above her, but she couldn’t quite hear it. Nellie shook her head and tried – really tried – to focus – 

“ –some spirits from Mrs. Treat here, she’s had a bad fright,” he was saying above her, handing off coins and sending a boy in slops running.

“Captain Hendricks – please, I have no need for that, really – what of –”

He held his hand up, shucking off his coat to hand to her. “You’ll do just fine, Mrs. T. Be damned if I know _why_ , but you’ll do fine.”

 _Why_. Yes, that was the question, wasn’t it? Nellie rose to her feet to look at the knot of bystanders, clutching the coat around her shoulders. Not far away, Susannah had gathered her dress and things with an unspoken reproach. _Why_ , yes, but that was for later. The easier question was _how_ –

* * *

_Boston, Several Weeks Previous_

There were well over a dozen letters that wanted response, some urgently so, but Nellie was so incandescently _furious_ with her brother Peter’s letter, dropped in her lap this morning, that she’d been useless and worse – Nellie has snapped at Polly and Sam whenever they’d tripped over their Bible verses, mulishly refused the coffee that Mary had made for her (only to snatch the cup out of her hands as she went to return to the kitchen), and sent Sally scurrying to the apothecary for lavender oil after – _of course_ – Nellie had used the last of it the week before and decided it could wait for later. _Later_. Her head was pounding _now_ and, not for the first time in her life, Nellie found herself wishing for the privileges accorded to the masculine sex. Captain Treat could have cursed to his heart’s content ( _well_ , she amended, _not in front of Polly and Sam_ ) on reading Peter’s unrepentant, _craven_ , miserly letter – Christ, Captain Treat could have _thrashed_ him.

He spent Mary’s portion. That _fu_ –

 _Well_ , Nellie thought poisonously, _what’s a few shillings here and a few shillings there? Easy enough to misplace pounds when there weren’t even enough of them to fill two hands_. Their father hadn’t had a sensible bone in his body with an estate to match, and the Lord above knew he’d settled little enough on Nellie when she informed him that she intended to marry the handsome stranger blown into Newport only a few weeks before – but there _had been_ money for Mary in his will. Money that Nellie _had been_ counting on towards Mary’s dowry. Money that Peter, Captain Coggeshall’s acknowledged heir and Mary’s closest male relative, technically had the managing of. 

Money that was part of the dowry agreed upon between themselves and the Winships. 

Money that no longer existed and now, of course, Nellie had to fix it.

Nellie dropped her quill and rubbed her temples, looking scornfully at the few words she’d managed. 

_Brother,_

_I am in receipt of your ~~damned~~ Missive of the 8th inst. and acknoledge the Intelligence you have sent. ~~Had You been reasonable and sent this sooner~~ _

_If the Money is gone then it is gone._

_~~If I cared not for my Name and the Dignity of Our Sister I should make your conduct generally known in Newport and Boston and in whatever Ports and Holes you carry out yr Business in, and leave it for~~ _

_~~I shld call you a Basterd but for my Love of my Step-Mother, who wld have~~ _

_~~I will inform Mary of what is Done~~ _

But of course – glancing up at Mary, pins in her teeth, pleating the soft silk at her new dress’s shoulders – she couldn’t make good on those last threats. Humiliating Peter necessarily meant alerting Mary, and her sister didn’t deserve to have that kind of fear laid over her impending marriage. Call it a sisterly gift – another gift, for hadn’t Nellie just two days ago spoken to Mr. Smibert and commissioned a pair of portraits? Mary and Mr. Winship – _Jabez_ , she corrected herself, she really had to start thinking of him as Jabez – to hang in the parlor of their new home.

 _I will be grateful_ (underlined once) _to you for whatever you in Your Role as our Father’s heir can Settle on Mary, who is a Good and Worthy Woman –_

Nellie looked up again at Mary, with her golden hair and porcelain complexion, good-natured and better-polished than she had ever been – and gritted her teeth.

 _– a Worthy Woman whose impending Marriage will build so Beneficial_ (underlined twice) _an Alliance for our Families._

There. If Peter wasn’t intelligent enough to piece two and two together, hopefully his wife was. Nellie gave the first copy up for scrap, copied the short letter onto a clean sheet (and, after a few moments’ hesitation, her letter-book), folded it, sealed it, addressed it, and stuck it in a pile of letters to be sent. 

Mary looked at her grimace, and said soothingly that Sally should be back at any moment, and the lavender would help as it always did.

“I expect so,” Nellie replied, with a smile that had not a little guilt for her temper tucked in the corners. “I am sorry, my dears, for taking my temper out on you. Sam, has Mr. Cato anything to say about anger?”

She knew he did, but waited patiently while Sam dutifully reviewed his book, and fished up an appropriate couplet:

_“Contra hominem iustem prave contendere noli;  
Semper enim deus iniustas ulciscitur iras.”_

“ _Iras_ is anger,” said Polly, looking up from her reading.

“And _semper_ is always,” added Mary, still speaking around her pins.

“A dangerous combination.”

Sam pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “It means, ‘Do not contest … improperly contest against a just man; the Lord always … avenges? avenges unjust anger.’ ”

 _A just man_. Too generous by far for their Uncle Peter, but that was a lesson for another day. Nellie thanked Sam for the instruction and complimented Polly for her quick learning, before turning back to her correspondence with a sigh.

She’d just finished consulting her account-books for the recent cost of train-oil and dried cod – Uncle Bendish’s cousins in London asked, from time to time, for reports of the Boston markets, and would repaid the favor with useful news of their own – when she heard the clatter of heels turn from the street to her dooryard, and an insistent knock on her door. Nellie glanced up, but was too late to glimpse anything from the parlor window.

“Did you see who’s come?”

Sam shook his head, not even looking up from his _Distichs_.

“Only her dress,” replied Polly, “She was nearly running.”

Nellie hadn’t long to wait, for Susannah opened the door and brought their visitor into the parlor: young Mrs. Sargent, rosy in the cheeks and fussing with her hat, which had been deranged a little from her exercise.

“I hope you’ll forgive me, Mrs. Treat,” she said, a little breathlessly, “Oh – forgive me, good afternoon, Miss Coggeshall. Mary. Samuel. I came up as soon as I got word.”

“Word?”

“From the harbor. My husband wanted you to know – Commodore Norrington had Moreland impound his cargo! This morning – this very hour!”

 _Hellfire_. “All?”

“The molasses and sugar,” the younger woman specified, leaving out what had gone untouched – if anything, “If Captain Sargent will pay the duties plus fine, Moreland will release the cargo. My husband sent a note for you just here.”

Nellie took the proffered paper, noting the unbroken seal. “Does Captain Sargent require an immediate reply?”

“No, Mrs. Treat.”

A relief, at least. “Will you take some refreshment? You’ve had a difficult morning.”

“I thank you, but no. I have more business of my husband’s to attend to.” 

Nellie could imagine. She bade Mrs. Sargent farewell, the letter heavy in her hand all the while.

“What’s all that, mama?”

“Your father,” she paused, smiling a little falsely at Polly, though by Providence she was trying, “owned part of Captain Sargent’s _Pequot_. And so I take part of the profits.”

 _And losses_. Nellie broke the seal.

It dispensed with proper greetings, she noted, Sargent’s writing splattered across the sheet. Little wonder. Certain bits jumped out – so many _hhds Kingston_ and double that _hhds Saint Eustasius_ and _hhds Havana_ and _Santiago de Cuba_ ( _industrious_ , she noted with approval), the barest sketch of how he’d endeavored to falsify the manifests, and how he’d come to this state – little wonder. Sargent had left – when? The ice had barely gone from the harbor, and Mrs. Sargent had suspended her confinement to struggle down to the waterfront to watch the _Pequot_ go. She’d been delivered of Jonathan that night, if Nellie recalled correctly. – Well. Sargent had been gone for weeks before the _Garland_ and _Teal_ came into the harbor under the red ensign, and evidently had missed Hendricks and any other Captain with the news from Boston. Not surprising, really – the Caribbean was a big place, Sargent (consulting the note) probably beating back to windward and home around the same time the news was spreading west.

Yes, that was probably it. But she was left cursing Norrington’s efficiency all the same – even if, between the (no doubt enraged) intercession of Governor Belcher and the uproar of the harbor, Norrington had been moved to offer a kind of clemency to the ships who’d left before the Navy arrived. But how much clemency was there in a fine? To be paid in the currency of the Empire? Belcher had better have been working on _that_ , or hadn’t anyone told their visitors that the he’d have an easier time laying his hands on an honest man in the colonial government than on an _honest_ English pound?

And therein was the problem: Sargent didn’t have enough to pay off the fine. Lent money to his brother in Kittery – his brother-in-law’s distillery – baby Jonathan – surely she understood?

Nellie committed the sum to memory, and excused herself to the kitchen.

“I have need of the fire, if I may,” she said to Susannah, who had fled the heat as far as she could and still keep an eye on the cooking.

 _Surely she understood_. She did. The Lord above help her, she did. The arithmetic was simple, but she didn’t have to like it – and watching the paper curl up in the flames did little to keep her temper from flaring up again. Pay the fine, take the profit she could from the cargo, get on with her business. What was life but taking unexpected losses as they came, and darning the holes they left as best as one could? A cargo of livestock, dead on the voyage to the Caribbean markets, one year – a lost brig, the poor _Susan Bright_ , another. Fevers. Death. Some things you took in stride. Some things left you – limping. 

But that was a path of thought she’d done her best to close off, and Nellie stirred the coals a little viciously, making sure all traces of the note were gone.

She couldn’t help that Norrington would find out that she was a part owner of the _Pequot_ , and have cause to suspect the rest of her actions. What was there for her to do? Hope – hope that Aunt B’s painting of the bereaved Widow Treat, overwhelmed by her husband’s death, covered up the more dangerous reality beneath – hope that she herself would be only one amongst dozens suspected, and that however industrious Commodore Norrington was, he’d never have enough time in the day to investigate the whole harbor.

And, in the short term, she could get Sargent the money for the fine – and obscure her traces as best she could.

She rose from her crouch before the hearth, feeling her knees creak, feeling every one of her thirty years. “Thank you, Susannah,” Nellie said, quietly, and apologized for invading her space without warning.

Susannah acknowledged her contrition. “What time will you be wanting to leave for the Bendishes, then?”

_Oh, right. The party._

* * *

There wasn’t much to say about the party. If she’d been in the habit of keeping a diary instead of account books, she’d no idea what she could or would record. _Went alone, Mary claiming the Lavender for use on her own Pains – wore Grey – had better spent the time at my Account Books. Lydia become quite ~~Profishent~~ Proficient at Bach, complains of my Page-Turning._

She’d done her best to avoid the Commodore, feeling – as Aunt B might say – out of charity with the man. But Aunt B would be Aunt B, and remind her how important it was that Norrington feel _charitably_ toward her, all but pushing her to speak with him at least the once. She could have blessed Lieutenant What’s-his-name (the nervous, officious one – not friendly Groves or morose Tollemache) when he’d coughed and brought the Commodore over to speak with Phips! But even the Lieutenant Governor couldn’t keep Norrington occupied all evening, and he returned to apologize to her.

Too polite by half, was Commodore Norrington. 

Therein had been her problem, and she recalled the next morning what she’d said with a groan. Her jaw was sore, her guts were twisted, but at least she’d slept – not enough to forget that she’d tried to be, well, less serious, to not speak of what had been eating away at her since the morning. The weather, fine, that was all to the good. Weather was good idle chatter for those who made their living on the waves. She’d spoken of what they thought of the world in Boston – perhaps a little disdainfully, but the habits of one’s youth were hard to break, and Friends found their Calvinist brethren a little ridiculous at times. 

And then she’d spoken of money.

Nellie heaved herself out of bed, and went to scrub the sleep from her face, already feeling tired and damp from the summer humidity.

She hadn’t meant to, and least she could salve her conscience by remembering she’d spoken facetiously of the two sides of Boston, as she’d come to know them: city of hills and Winthrops, casting the light of their divine order and prosperity out for the world to marvel at – and there, on the opposite side of the coin, the city of masts and barrels, the rot and murkiness of the harbor, governed by profits, worshipping prosperity always and the Divine on Sundays. What she’d said of herself had been true, and while there was no shame in it, Nellie still wished devoutly she hadn’t spoken of it that way.

It was hard to imagine a grieving widow speaking so facetiously of the dearly missed past, she supposed. Nellie’d excused herself then, fearing what the green-eyed Commodore might have heard in her words, and scuttled off to Aunt B, who’d sighed and sent her to turn pages for Lydia. At least that had kept her out of trouble for the rest of the night.

Nellie dismissed the memory with a sigh. The early morning mist was pressing up against her window, and the world beyond seemed at once insubstantial and menacing. She’d been doing so well since she and Small had manage to sneak the _Breeds Hill_ cargo by Moreland and Norrington! She prayed that her luck and abilities had not run out.

* * *

She’d gotten the pounds, shillings, and pence to Sargent, and later that week burned another note from the man written in recognition of it – one with a solemn oath that he’d told the customsman that the smuggling was all his own initiative. _A recent widow with children – How much time did Moreland think_ (he’d implied) _that she had to devote to managing every last detail?_ The cargo was released – Moreland and Norrington hadn’t even had time to move it to a warehouse, so all it meant was the removal of the Marines standing drowsily at attention, keeping anyone from accessing the hold. And so business resumed.

Nellie scratched the amounts into her account-books, chewing her lip as she totaled and re-totaled the numbers. She kept the books hidden away, but that wasn’t a guarantee of secrecy – maybe she ought to be keeping record in code?

 _Ridiculous_ , she told herself. But she started keeping the key on her at all times.

Life went on.

She dispatched Captain Small and the _Breeds Hill_ , and Captain Whitcomb with the _Nancy Anne_ , out again – not for the West Indies, but for Newport and repairs. Together they gave it out that their hulls needed scraping and maintenance too badly to wait for later, and Nellie’s Uncle Coggeshall could use the business – how could one argue with the imperatives of family? Small she entrusted with an innocuous-enough note thanking her uncle for taking on the work, and mentioning that she had enclosed, in addition to her payment, a few luxuries – ribbon for Aunt Coggeshall, a pouch of some very fine tobacco for him – and there he’d find the more damning note, asking what could be done about hidden spaces and smuggler holds.

Nellie even met Commodore Norrington in passing on Long Wharf that day, and despite her spike of anxiety – tasting like bitter bile in her throat – she spoke easily about the irritation of constant scraping and painting.

“There was a man named Perry who proposed copper sheathing to the Admiralty, once,” he’d replied, a little distracted, “In my father’s time.”

When Norrington didn’t continue, she’d speculated that the cost was prohibitive, and he’d agreed, and they’d parted with a polite reference to speaking again at the Bendishes in the future.

Reverend Prince did sermonize on the weather, as expected, and the profits from the _Pequot_ ’s voyage began to come in – a blessing, for her worthless brother shot back that he had nothing to spare for Mary, and wasn’t Nellie the fortunate daughter? There were some poisonous jabs about her ostentatious means of living and how far behind she had left the Friends, which led Nellie to consign the letter to the flames without even dreaming of responding – she could little spare the extravagance, but she paid close attention to Mary’s dress and to the advertisements her sister sighed over, and obtained new lace for her _engageantes_ – and not a little spitefully told Mary the lace was a gift from brother Peter. She was allowed to make a little fun with the resources to hand, wasn’t she?

And at any road, Mary and Mr. Winship ( _Jabez_! she had to correct herself) were beginning to sit for their portraits, and she was not going to allow her sister to appear the gainer by her marriage. 

At least, ‘ _appearances_ ’ was what Nellie told herself was the heart of the matter, when she felt herself begin to fret about the marriage and the sittings. When she lay awake at night, with nothing but her thoughts for company, she looped back always to her two fears – one for the dowry agreed to be paid, and the other less substantial, but no less real: Nellie did not want to sit in Mr. Smibert’s studio for long hours. She didn’t have the time, she told herself, and she little liked the associations the room held.

“You needn’t come,” said Mary, creeping into her room by candlelight, the night after the first sitting, “You needn’t come with me to Smibert’s.”

Nellie put on the appearance of having been woken from sleep, though Mary would sooner have believed in the curse of Goodman Corey than Nellie’s poor theatrics. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You were as skittish as a colt.”

“Was not.”

“You _were_.” Mary set the candle down and sat on the edge of the bed.

Scrubbing her face with the heels of her hands, Nellie admitted it, and sat up in bed.

“I know – I know save paying Mr. Smibert, the last time you – well, you needn’t come. I’ll ask Aunt Bendish, or Mrs. Hayling to sit with me. That’s chaperone enough.”

“You are my _sister_ , and I’ve ask you to endure enough of the obligations without allowing you many of the privileges.”

Mary protested – what else was Nellie to have done in her time of mourning, but lean on her? _Done better_ , Nellie thought privately. Mary was only twenty, and she’d have responsibility enough heaped on her in October – she didn’t need to manage Nellie. Too, Nellie didn’t want to think about why she was so very unnerved by Mr. Smibert’s studio. Since Mary wouldn’t respect her sincerity, she’d try a different tack instead.

“And how will I be assured Mr. Smibert is doing you justice, if you banish me to my parlor?”

“Ask to see the studies, I’m sure.”

“Such difficulties,” Nellie yawned, glibly, “Much easier for me to glance over his shoulder from the studio, my dear.”

Mary threw a pillow at her, and no serious conversation could be had after that.

* * *

She did have cause to regret her resolve, for when it came to the next sitting Nellie expected to be just as unhappy. The day broke well enough – a fine, clear sunrise, all different shades of pink and orange – and Nellie pieced her way through the morning in a series of chores designed to keep her mind from wandering to the Cornhill studio: re-totaling her account-books, speaking with Mr. Bishop about Mary’s dowry and all legal agreements between the Coggeshalls and the Winships, and penning a note to Mr. Henchman asking him to notify her if any Latin volumes appropriate to a young scholar should appear.

Nellie had little hope of this last task bearing fruit, but disappointment was its own kind of medicine, and she was happy to gnaw on that bone like the lowliest cur, until Mary rapped on the lintel and told her it was time to go. 

Mrs. Smibert met them at her door with an apology – Mr. Smibert was still with his morning appointment. Would Mrs. Treat and Miss Coggeshall take tea in her parlor?

“Please,” said Mary, stepping out in front of Nellie, her silk rustling agreeably.

Nellie concurred. Tea – _outside_ the studio – would be fortifying. 

And it was just then, of course, that the door to that room eased open onto the hall, and Midshipman Jarsdel leaned out. “Mr. Smibert is nearly done – Commodore Norrington asks if you will join him?” He looked especially pleadingly at Nellie, before continuing, “He would welcome the conversation, Mrs. Treat.”

Mary glanced the question at her, no doubt sensing that Nellie felt ambushed. It wasn’t Jarsdel’s intention, Nellie thought, and she hoped it was not the Commodore’s – but she still felt shaken over the close call with the _Pequot_ , and she could not help that familiar spike of worry. “Of course,” Nellie replied, politely as possible, and Mrs. Smibert said she would have tea brought out to them there.

Mr. Jarsdel held the door open for the two of them, and Mary took her hand, pressing it with a smile: _It will be all right_.

They greeted Mr. Smibert unobtrusively and politely, Nellie eyeing the vague form half-emerged on the canvas, and over his shoulder to where Commodore stood next to a globe. He greeted them stiffly – after a few hours’ sitting, what else could one do? 

“Thank you for the invitation,” Mary said, arranging herself in a chair by the window, while Nellie riffled through her memory for something innocuous to talk about. How much time could Mary spend talking about the weather?

And what had they spoken of last time? The time before last, a year and a half since? She recalled baby Jenny’s babbling, heavy on her hip, Polly and Sam kicking each other’s ankles beneath the table, Mary trying not to laugh while Hal and Uncle Bendish read from – what? – _The Twelfth Night_? It _had been_ Shakespeare, she was sure. And Captain Treat at the center of it all – immensely pleased by the chaos – promising sweets to Polly and Sam if they would sit still with one breath, and telling the most outrageous sea-stories with the next.

 _You are not helping_ , she’d said, smiling, not moving her gaze from where she’d been instructed to look.

 _Nellie, my dear –_

Nellie sat down, abruptly. For a few moments she only breathed and fiddled with her mourning ring, trying to think of the memory as only something to be left out and put away – a shirt, a pair of breeches, a bedjacket. When she felt herself again, she glanced around surreptitiously. Had she been seen? The Commodore had offered his congratulations and good wishes to Mary on her upcoming marriage, and now they were speaking disinterestedly of festivities for the Hanoverian ascension’s anniversary. 

There was a book lying on another chair, next to her, and she picked it up. _The Works of Virgil_ , by Dryden – _of course_. “Is this yours, Mr. Jarsdel?”

“Commodore Norrington’s, ma’am,” the reedy young midshipman replied, dutifully.

Mary asked if she might see the book, and Nellie handed it for her to compliment – it was a very handsome edition, she said, a little wistfully. Certainly no such illustrative plates came off the Boston printing presses, didn’t Nellie agree?

Nellie did. “It is a beautiful book. But were you not reading from Caesar?”

“Lieutenant Groves said I ought to read widely.” 

“There is no school-master aboard the _Garland_ ,” the Commodore said, by way of explanation. 

There was an edge in his way of saying it – irritation? Nellie had done a fine job in avoiding the man’s ire so far, so could not say for sure. On the basis of schooling two children and running both a household and business concerns, however, she assumed that managing the education of the young gentlemen on top of the ship would feel burdensome.

“Is that usual practice? To have a school-master on board?”

“Where the Admiralty feels there are midshipmen enough to make up a class, it isn’t unheard of.”

“He would have a very difficult task, then.” She paused, thinking of a sequitur, turning to the midshipman. “But still, I am envious of you, Mr. Jarsdel. I have told the Commodore before – I had no instruction in classical study, and would likely have been improved myself, had someone been lending me Caesar and Virgil and Dryden. How far are you with Aeneas?”

“Shipwrecked in Carthage, ma’am. Queen Dido’s welcomed Aeneas and his men.”

“And how poorly would the Romans repay their gratitude,” said the Commodore, glancing at her, and out the window again, “ _Delenda est Carthago._ ”

“Carthage is destroyed?… was destroyed? You have the advantage of me, sir.”

“Carthage must be destroyed,” he amended, and had the good manners to look a little ashamed to have put her in the position of mistranslation, “One of your Catos, during the Punic Wars.”

 _My Catos?_ “You will have to tell me which one. I cannot think that it is Cato of the _Moral Distichs_? But then, they both seem a little severe.”

“The Elder,” the Commodore said, and spoke a little about his campaign against Carthage after the second Punic War. This was something Midshipman Jarsdel could contribute to: the gawky young man spoke of Hannibal and his elephants, and Scipio Africanus, with such enthusiasm that it really mattered little to Nellie that (she glanced over to Mary) neither she nor her sister knew much on the subject.

The promised tea put an end to that line of talk, and Mr. Smibert, who’d held himself apart from the conversation, closed his portfolio some time after that, excusing himself to speak to his wife. Commodore Norrington and Midshipman Jarsdel began collecting themselves to make their farewells. 

Norrington hesitated to take the volume, however. “Have you anything to entertain Miss Coggeshall and yourself, Mrs. Treat?” 

She’d forgotten. Nellie replied regretfully and in the negative, and the Commodore left the Dryden on the table, saying that he had to speak with Mr. Bendish at the end of the week, and he could collect the volume from her family then.

“Of course – thank you.”

Midshipman Jarsdel bid them good afternoon, with some prompting, and Commodore Norrington did the same.

“And thank goodness for that,” said Mary, dusting off her immaculate skirts as she crossed the studio to sit before Mr. Smibert’s easel, “I’d forgotten, as well. Will you start from the beginning?”

“How long do you expect this sitting to take, my dear?” Nellie spoke as lightly as she could, leafing through, the whole of it nearly pristine. _A great respecter of books_ , she thought to herself, not even seeing a name on the flyleaf, nor any notes on the following pages. But here was Book the First:

“ _Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,  
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,  
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore…_

* * *

One morning, the next week, Nellie woke to the smell of pipe-tobacco, and heard a familiar whistle from the parlor downstairs. She glanced out the window into the dawn, and quickly dressed, hurrying down the stairs with her shoes in hand.

“I let myself in,” said Captain Hendricks, still a little salt-encrusted, with his boots on the cold fender and hat half-over his face – nowhere near enough to cover his crooked smile. Nellie shook off her surprise – he’d only been gone seven weeks? Perhaps more? It was short for a voyage, but her worries in Boston had made the months seem an age! – and crossed her arms, but Hendricks would be Hendricks. She would, Nellie admitted to herself, have had more to worry about if he hadn’t been up to his usual tricks.

“When did you get in?”

“Last night, just before dark. Couldn’t bribe the pilot, so the _Watch-and-Wait_ had to crawl her way in, but why wait for morning to be carrying out business? Tried to catch you, but you had an engagement at the Bendishes. I came up early this morning.”

That was fair enough. “You made good time.”

“Mm.” Hendricks took his hat off and set it on the side-table, stretching his neck as he did so. “Good weather, we were lucky. A steady wind and a straight run home.”

Nellie sat across from him. “You passed on my letters?”

“I did, and I thank you for the business,” said Hendricks, clamping his pipe between his teeth to fish through his pockets for a parcel of papers, “Here’s what they sent back. I think most are for their families, but there’s reports for you – and that thick one, at the bottom, from Nassau.”

 _John!_ Nellie skipped through the rest of the pile to lay her hand on the bulky letter, recognizing at once her oldest brother’s sure hand on the simple address: _Elinor Coggeshall Treat, Boston._ “Did you see him? How was he?”

“Healthy as a horse and brown as a coconut. Said he found another wreck but couldn’t say more.”

 _That was John all over._ “I’m glad he’s doing well.”

“Governor Fitzwilliam’s given up and gone back to England,” Hendricks said with a snort, “John Coggeshall’s doing better than well. God knows who they’ll get in Nassau next, but there isn’t a lick of order there at present and it suits everyone just fine.”

She had to smile at that, holding the first letter in months in her hands – and asked what Hendricks had told John about their present problems in Boston.

“About Norrington, you mean? Yes – he’d heard of him – said he’d written everything he knew about the man in there. He hopes it’ll be a help, because he says you’ll need it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, Mrs. T. – any chance of coffee or a crust of bread?” 

There was. Captain Hendricks followed her through into the kitchen – still empty, but Nellie suspected Hendricks had already seen Susannah and told her not to worry, he would fend for himself. As Nellie ground down the beans, Hendricks saw to the fire and the kettle, talking of his trip all the while – what molasses cost in Barbados versus Sint Maarten, the price of coffee in Martinique, the strange and sudden appearance of East India Company ships in the Caribbean. In St. Pierre, he swore, he’d seen a spider as big as his hand and as pink as a flower! Nellie rolled her eyes as she cut into a fresh loaf and laid out cheese and summer berries. “You’re sure it wasn’t a bird?”

“Surely. I’ll bring one back to Boston, next time.”

She said she was fine without, thanks all the same. They ate and drank their coffee in comparative silence, until the crumbs had been cleared away, at which point Nellie picked up her end of the conversation. She told Hendricks what he’d missed in Boston harbor – which cargos had been seized, and who had been thus far preserved, what had happened with Captain Sargent, and Norrington’s policy regarding forfeiture versus fines.

“And Governor Belcher agreed to allow that?” Hendricks scoffed. “It won’t hold, Mrs. T, it simply can’t. Now – I told Mr. Barrie I’d be back after sunrise and start with the cargo, but there’s some books for you from your brother, a parcel for Susannah, and some coffee beans, as it happens, that came to market in Nassau. I can send it along for you, or you can come by Long Wharf as it suits.”

He collected his hat from the parlor on his way, and was gone.

Around noon, Nellie released Polly and Sam from their lessons, telling them she would return inside and hour, and that they were to read from a book of their choice until then. Susannah came with her, having fixed a basket over her arm in the same way – Nellie imagined – a knight of old fixed his gauntlets and visored helmet, before joining the fray. _Ready?_ seemed an inane question to ask of her housekeeper, and so she didn't. They walked in comparative quiet towards the waterfront, moving closer together as the crowd and noise increased, until they found themselves in the noisiest and most noisome part of Boston.

The _Watch-and-Wait_ was near the end of Long Wharf, past most of the warehouses that lined the sides. Getting there seemed a pilgrimage in itself – all the proofs of Boston’s prosperity both distractions to marvel at and obstacles to avoid: barrels of molasses rolling away from the ships, bound for market, mahogany logs from New Providence Island and elsewhere, bolts of brilliant cloth waving like pennants in the dying breeze. In return: livestock and high-spirited horses, barrels of salt-cod and grain, dried fruits – if it could be moved and sold, it came down the Boston wharves. Commerce! Nellie sidestepped around a pile of animal refuse. One had to be as careful of one’s person as one’s purse, on the wharves.

Almost to the _Watch-and-Wait_ , then, a now-familiar voice cut through the noise of Long Wharf: “Mrs. Treat!” Nellie saw at once from where – just ahead, the Commodore had climbed up from a boat below.

“Commodore Norrington,” she greeted him, ducking a little to avoid being hit with a sheaf of staves, moving towards the ladder and out of the general throng, “Good afternoon.”

If he looked a little surprised to see her here again, he was too polite to say it, and Nellie, finding herself in the now-usual position of making conversation out of whatever seemed innocuous enough, asked after the health of his officers and men. Replying with his own inquiries after her family’s health, Norrington said he would not keep her from whatever errand brought her to the wharf.

 _Right_. She was trying to avoid drawing suspicion to her activities.

“Captain Hendricks has just returned from the Caribbean,” she said, gesturing to the little _Watch-and-Wait_ , Hendricks himself raising a hand to her from where he stood on the wharf, “And he’s brought a – a gift from my brother in those parts. Books, I expect.”

“I wasn’t in the habit of thinking the Caribbean a place of great learning.”

“Perhaps not, but while we have a University in Boston, our bookshops can be a little – limited, in selection.” _How many editions of Mr. Bunyan’s_ The Pilgrim’s Progress _were strictly necessary?_ But being flippant had gotten her into conversational shallows before, and she bit down the remark.

“Lieutenant Groves had remarked something of the sort.”

“There are some elements of our reputation that are still true.”

The Commodore began to make a reply, but she heard a call from somewhere behind her – “Mrs. Treat!” She begged Norrington’s pardon and turned to see who it was, surveying the bustling wharf, at last spotting Captain Sargent emerging from a warehouse opposite. It could wait – would have to, she thought, feeling her stomach knot, lest she want to appear more suspicious by association.

Nellie turned back around. “I am sorry – you were saying about – Commodore?”

The man was _gone_.

It did not take long to puzzle out the _where_ and _how_ – Nellie glanced over the wharf’s edge, to the _Garland_ ’s gig, to the gesturing men whose shouts seemed so far away. Rings – _rings_ in the water. Fallen, or knocked in? The latter – there was that crew bringing by staves – hadn’t she just had to duck? 

What did all that matter now?

 _He’ll drown!_ Nellie’s gaze fixed on the broken surface – the Commodore was not surfacing, but an ugly and unbidden thought was: _So?_

It made horrible sense. Providence knew it, she knew it, every man in the harbor knew it. That’s why they were all standing there, wasn’t it? His Lieutenant and his men excepted – especially if they could not swim? _If he drowns, it all goes back to normal…_

She’d go down like a stone herself with all her pleats and gathers. Nellie fumbled with the pins holding her bodice together, shucking out of the gown with ill grace as she tried and failed to kick off her shoes. Petticoat, too, and pocket hoops – 

The sounds of Long Wharf were disappearing – Captain Hendricks and Susannah saying something she was resolutely not heeding – the rings marking where he’d fallen in very nearly dissipated – 

She dove – like she remembered, though it had been _years_ , shuddering to feel the cold water against her skin, easing her eyes open despite the bitter sting of salt. There wasn’t much to see in the murky darkness; the dull noise of the surface had faded far away, and left only the sluice of blood in her ears. Down – down – down – fanning her fingers out in the darkness – lungs beginning to tighten – 

a flash of white – 

and she’d grabbed him by his coat, kicking for the surface for all she was worth.

“There she is!”

“She’s got him!” 

“Mrs. Treat! Mrs. Treat, there! Take the oar!”

How strong, how loud the contrast between the wharf and the deeps below! 

She hadn’t been gone a minute, but the noise and light of the surface swamped her as surely as a wave. The unstirring form in her arms handed off to the men on the ladder – she bobbed, breathing heavily for a moment – until Captain Hendricks looked over the side, threatening to jump in after her.

So –

That was _how_ she’d gotten here, shivering, Hendricks’s jacket held close around her with one hand, and a half-drunk glass of spirits in the other. The retching and spluttering she’d heard through the knot of muttering bystanders had subsided, and Nellie shoved aside the _why_ for just a few moments later, wanting proof of what had happened, wanting to see what she had wrought.

The gathered men parted to allow her through, and Norrington – dripping and pale, bloodied on the side of the head where he must have been hit – looked up at her. “Mrs. Treat,” he said, courteous as ever, a curious expression on his face, “I’m told I owe you my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, this chapter would not have been possible without spacecasewriter13/@theonlyredcar; special shootout to my friend E-, who saw my outline for the fic and thought it needed more Dramatic Rescues.
> 
> Tired of Latin yet? Great! Me, too! Nellie and her children continue to take lessons from Cato's _Moral Distichs_ , though Nellie is perhaps not inclined to take these injunctions seriously at present. Luckily, Midshipman Jarsdel has temporarily suspended his campaign against Caesar's Gallic War commentaries, and is taking a stab at Dryden's translation of the _Aeneid_ instead - the start of which is quoted.
> 
> Commodore Norrington's quote "Delenda est Carthago" does translate "Carthage must be/is to be destroyed", and Cato the Elder did voice the sentiment (phrased differently) repeatedly in the ramp-up to the Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage - technically, you could say Norrington is miquoting, BUT the Earl of Shaftesbury misquoted it thus while calling for support of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in the later 17th century, so I hope he's forgiven.
> 
> What Norrington has to say about the education of midshipman is as correct as I can make it - schoolmasters for midshipmen at sea, especially before the advent of dedicated academies for officers, weren't unheard of, but so far as I can tell almost always only on larger ships of war. The _Garland_ , alas, is just a frigate - and so it's up to the older officers and perhaps even older midshipmen to impart useful learning on the young gentlemen.
> 
> And lastly, don't take life-saving advice from Nellie or I.


	5. An Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lieutenant Theodore Groves reviews the events on Long Wharf and the costs of the Royal Navy's intervention in Boston's smuggling economy, Commodore Norrington issues an invitation, and Nellie discusses her past.

Theodore Groves couldn’t swim, which didn’t bother him as much as one’d expect. He could float well enough, after all – and as for the rest, he took care to mind what Captain Bliss had said those years ago: _the trick to not drowning, my lad, is not getting wet_. His words had seem eminently sensible to a sniveling young gentleman who’d never so much as seen the Channel before being shoved out of his father’s Wiltshire parsonage in a scratchy blue coat, Seller’s _Practical Navigation_ in one hand and Ogilby’s _Homer, his Odysses_ translated in the other – easy enough, for HMS _Hero_ was greater by far than even Sir Walter’s Wolfford House, and he’d had neither time nor desire to so much as even look at the dark water that rolled along in Spithead anchorage. He took great care to mind himself, knowing always where the ship’s sides were, and found some limited comfort in the nettings and railings between himself and the deeps. 

It was a storm in the Channel, then, great waves – it seemed – towering over the _Hero_ like malevolent Alps, the rain coming in above, below and sideways, that little Midshipman Theodore Groves had realized Captain Bliss might have been having a laugh. _Not getting wet_ , indeed.

He’d learned many lessons his first year on HMS _Hero_ , and learned them well. But he’d still never learned to swim.

Today, though – 

Theo’d had several moments of panick in between the shock of seeing Norrington hit the water and the surprising sequel: Mrs. Treat (he numbly assumed, he’d just heard the Commodore talking to her) knifing through the air off the wharf, and disappearing into the choppy water alongside almost noiselessly. He’d barked at Bleeker to prepare a line to cast, and at Jack Mendes (who could swim if not well, the watery equivalent of making his mark instead of signing his name) to set aside his oar and prepare to go after – well, whoever came up. If they did. The noise of Long Wharf having since disappeared, he’d only vaguely noted the men lining the side, some slack, some holding line of their own, or barrels. 

He’d been holding his breath, only realizing it after Mrs. Treat had come gasping to the surface, dragging his friend with her.

How the rest was to be handled, he knew. Theodore Groves couldn’t swim, but he’d been around enough near-drowned men – undignified, yes, to practically throw Commodore James Norrington head over heels on a convenient hogshead, like a flask one was emptying, and send Mendes running to Copley’s tobacco shop down the wharf for the cheapest, bitterest-burning leaf they had – undignified, but far better than the alternative. He watched the crowd, the water leaking down the barrel – and _blood?_ – blood matting in his friend’s cropped hair.

Theo had no time to question it. Mendes returned, smoldering bowl in hand, and, coughing and wretching, Norrington came back to himself.

He said something trite – _Welcome back_ or _Can’t get away from us so easily, Sir_ or one of a thousand other blustery things – the kind of words you got used to stringing together after a battle or a bad blow, when you still weren’t sure if you and your shipmates had _really_ made it.

“Thank you, Mr. Groves.” Norrington sounded cool, but his hand still shook minutely, taking the flask Theo had commandeered from the boat’s crew. Theo quickly explained the last several minutes, as best he understood them – he’d been struck in the head, and fallen into the harbor, and Mrs. Treat had gone in after him. Norrington’s brows knitted 

Mrs. Treat approached, and they both looked up to see her: a man’s coat held tight around her shoulders the only modesty she’d been able to lay ahold of, and a glass of dark rum in one white-knuckled hand. Despite her exertion, her face was white as bleached linen – the pallor highlighted by the dark hair plastered to her face and neck, looking like so much seaweed. A far cry from the polished widow of ribbons and Romans in the Bendish parlor!

“Ah, Mrs. Treat,” said his commanding officer, “I’m told I owe you my life.”

She did not seem to know what reply to make, settling on a modest, “I am relieved I was not too late,” after a few hesitating moments, pulling the jacket tighter around herself.

Pale stuff! He had a strong desire to shake her hand, but she couldn’t return the gesture without threatening her modesty and what kind of thanks would that be? Norrington caught his eye and nodded, and Theo thanked her, complimenting her skill and bravery with a humorous jab at his own deficiency. But that was all the conversation that could be had. The widow looked more and more uncomfortable with each passing moment, and her maid – holding Mrs. Treat’s dress in a grey bundle – stood at her elbow, clearly wanting to get Mrs. Treat out of the public eye.

“Can I offer you an escort?” asked Norrington, rising to his feet.

It was a little comic, Norrington looking like a half-drowned rat, and Theo looked down to keep himself from laughing. _Thank God Norrington hadn’t lost his shoes_ , he found himself thinking, while his commanding officer talked succinctly around the fact of Mrs. Treat standing on Long Wharf in her underpinings, and what insult might come to her character. That might have been true, but her maid stood protectively by, and the man whose coat she’d commandeered stepped forward to say it was his fault she’d been on the wharf, and so it was his responsibility to bring her home.

“Thank you, Captain Hendricks,” she replied, and made her courtesies to the Commodore and Theo. The crowd, with what seemed a mix of prurient curiosity and respect, parted to let the trio go by.

 _Well_. There was no possibility of Norrington sitting for his portrait as he was, dripping like some spectral drowned revenant and uniform deranged, even if – Theo glanced over the side – it looked like Bleeker had laid ahold of the lost hat and wig, each looking more sadly bedraggled than the last. Theo dispatched to John Smibert a boy from among the wharfside idlers with that message, and the party made for the _Garland_.

It was only after they’d landed ashore once more, and received Mr. Smibert’s well-wishes as a prelude to the artistic endeavor, that Theo had a chance to turn over what had happened in his mind.

Norrington had hidden the gash beneath his hat and wig (and, with a heavy brass telescope in one hand and the other on a globe, looking somewhere between a stuffed and mounted version of himself and the Platonic ideal of _"Naval Officer"_ ) but the whole affair worried at Theo’s conscience. Accidents happened, that was true enough, and he’d been at sea long enough to have seen several examples of what a moment’s inattention could do – and he’d been struck himself, if only by a runaway barrel. The inattention there had been his, he was chagrined to recall. And whatever had occurred on Long Wharf, Norrington had said, in a cool, abrupt way, that he had looked away from the goings-on.

On the face of it, it looked like a wharfside accident. He _would have_ assumed it was only a wharfside accident, were it not for what had happened next – of all the hundreds of men thrown together on Long Wharf, and the dozens who lined the side, Mrs. Treat had been the fastest to respond.

Now, one had to make allowances: Theo could swim as well as he could fly, and he’d guess from fifteen years’ observation that less than half the men he’d met could do the former. Maybe less than a third, depending. That was a pretty generous estimation, but its implication suited his present level of charity toward Bostonians. Of all those men on the wharf, none of them could swim? 

He had no proof they _could_ , that was fair – extremely bad luck for His Majesty’s officers that the one time they had need of a strong swimmer there was none to be found (but then, this was the same service that had sent its fleet to the Mediterranean in the middle of a war with the Dutch, and had the gall to be shocked when Tromp swept Blake out of the Channel. Perhaps it was the nature of the Royal Navy to have bouts of unbelievable bad luck brought on by bad decision-making every now and again, just to balance out the gale that wrecked the Armada.) – bad luck, but not outside the realm of possibility. Except – and here Theo started and stopped drumming his fingers against his hat before Smibert could take it as a sign of impatience – there was Mrs. Treat’s friend, Captain Hendricks:

_“Get out of there, Mrs. Treat – get out, and if you can’t I’ll jump in after you!”_

Theo misliked betting on anything except cards, but he’d be willing the wager that Hendricks _could_ , and had not.

Hendricks – the name was familiar – captain and owner of the _Watch and Wait_ , who’d gracefully but sharply tacked her way out of Boston Harbor only a few days after Norrington’s first cargo seizure. He’d admired the man’s seamanship even if he’d watched (ha!) the _Watch and Wait_ ’s heels with a healthy amount of suspicion, and the port gossip – washed with a tide or two, jumbled in with the rockweed and knotted wrack and flotsam – was that her master had some plan to circumvent the Molasses Act and a chandler’s bill of others. Whether that was true remained to be seen – Moreland had conducted his business with Hendricks but hadn’t reported on the day’s inspections. Nothing about the activity aboard _Watch and Wait_ indicated that there was any problem – which didn’t mean that Hendricks _hadn’t_ done anything unlawful, only that, if he had (which Theo was a little inclined to believe, since he was mistrusting Hendricks over this day’s events anyway) he was getting away with it, at present.

He must have been frowning, or he’d been silent too long, for Norrington called his name and started to speak again of the ship’s business, and the last report from Nibley and the _Teal_ , and that was the end of that.

* * *

While James Norrington might have been the Captain of the _Garland_ as well as the Commodore of the (slapdash) squadron – _a damned inconvenience as well as a double insult_ , thought Theo at least once a week, well aware he was as good as the _Garland_ ’s captain but the actual commission eluded him – he had spent more time than his junior in the execution of his duties ashore. There was ticklish navigation there, and no mistake – Theo had met Governor Belcher twice now and dreaded the third, setting aside the mire of colonial politics and economic arrangements. He might not have had that happy talent for keeping himself to himself, but he did have an appreciative eye for difference, even if it meant sorting through heaps of dross for ore: the three main factions jockeying for control and power in the colonial government, the myriad personal dislikes and rivalries, the byzantine economic arrangements apparently necessitated by the scarcity of the pound, the contradiction of Bostonians’ pride in Britain and total disregard for its rules.

It wasn’t for him to judge whether the Bostonians were right to do so – his occupation in life did that for him – but his Wiltshire youth wasn’t so far from Dorset and the smugglers’ haven of Poole, and whether or not smuggling was lawful in that place, it flourished. Too, when Theo went over the log, recording which cargoes the _Garland_ helped impound, he tallied those duties against what – according to his rough calculations, made without consulting the purser – the cost of the _Garland_ and _Teal_ ’s presence was. Unless he was much mistaken, it cost the Navy a good deal more than it netted his Majesty’s government to have them here. There was the threat of war with Spain, and the skittish ship-owners to placate, but on the whole, it did not seem a profitable proposition.

These mathematics Theo tended to keep to himself, though not for lack of temptation otherwise: he’d seen hasty calculations to the same extent on Norrington’s desk, but his commanding officer had approached this exile with such a grim determination, that it hardly seemed a fruitful conversation to have. It was their future, after all.

(Those numbers weren’t the only thing he kept to himself that week; he’d raised the issue of the accident once, only to have Norrington thank him for his concern and dismiss it. Oh, it was kindly done – they had served together for close to a decade and Theo’d taken enough blows under Norrington’s command to voice personal concern every now and again – but it was the end of that conversation all the same. If it hadn’t been an accident, he was on his own to investigate it.)

Theo had gone to speak with Norrington a day after the sitting, starting his day’s reports and ending with the business that had been as thoroughly chewed over by the wardroom as their dinner: the upcoming ball the officers intended to give in honor of the Hanoverian ascension. While it was officially the Commodore’s gathering, in the way of the service, it functionally relied on and included the _Garland_ ’s lieutenants. Norrington had said (with a sardonic raise of the eyebrows) it had been suggested to him that he was not the most popular man in Boston at present and the invitation would be better received coming from the officers of the _Garland_ on the whole – _“Less like a command performance,”_ had been his exact words. 

Privately, Theo had found it ridiculous that the officers could pose any less real menace to commerce than their Commodore, but he certainly had the most conspicuous coat, and that counted for a lot.

So, Theo had continued. Where the celebration was concerned it was the opinion of the wardroom that the _Garland_ should make its gratitude to Mrs. Treat known. She had hazarded her life and reputation to save Norrington’s life, yes, and that alone would merit its own recognition – but (Theo reasoned) paying respects to a respected matron would be a sign of goodwill towards Boston, would it not?

“What sort of gratitude does the wardroom believe appropriate?” Norrington’d said, making a show of setting aside his journal and his notes. “Commissioning some token from –” he consulted the _Boston Gazette_ laid on-top of some other books and papers – “Mr. Burt? Mr. Revere?”

Governor Swann, late of Jamaica, had long had the habit of commissioning objects (silver plate, medals, even the Commodore’s sword) to mark service to the Crown or the community – no doubt this was what Norrington had thought of. Theo had clarified: not a gift – though Lieutenant Tollemache and Inglis, the master, had advocated for candlesticks – but a public recognition.

“The guest of honor?”

“Perhaps not in so many words, sir.” Theo had paused, before allowing that making it wasn’t their lives that Mrs. Treat had saved, and that Mrs. Treat the guest of honor would mean she would partner Norrington in the minuet. It was his decision to make.

Norrington had allowed it was an honorable idea, thanked him for his reports and contributions to the organization of the upcoming ball, and bade him good evening with an invitation to dine in the great cabin the next day.

In the days since that conversation, he continued his duties with due diligence, going over Moreland’s books with an extra spiteful scrutiny for Captain Hendricks – which netted him nothing but yellow bile and a headache. Foiled there, he still had enough to keep him busy from break of dawn ‘til the late summer dusk – dealing with George Monk of the Blue Anchor, whose long rooms the _Garland_ ’s officers had hired, and every other thing attending: musicians, refreshments, dinner itself … 

It did bear some resemblance to provisioning a ship and readying for a long voyage, he told himself, when he got out of humor about it. _Who knew? Perhaps, if I have no luck making the step from Lieutenant to Captain – with or without the half-step between – I’ll have a career as a publican or master of ceremonies instead!_

He still had no clear idea what Norrington intended to do about Mrs. Treat, which was, strictly speaking, not his problem; yet Theodore Groves, impoverished minister's son turned resident of the Admiralty’s black books, frequently had no choice but to borrow – in this case, trouble. In Norrington’s correspondence he noticed a note or two between himself and Mrs. Bendish, kept separate from the usual letters between his commanding officers and officials and allies ashore. Mrs. Bendish was Mrs. Treat’s aunt, Theo recalled, wondering what social machinations might be afoot.

* * *

At the week’s end, Norrington summoned him to the great cabin, and so Theo (hiding a delighted grin and swaggering step at leaving the young gentlemen’s navigation lesson to officious Greene) went, dusting chalk off his coat as he walked. It was another unpleasant day, putting him in mind of Port Royal and that merciless heat, but he didn’t mind so much what task Norrington had in mind for him when he heard it.

“You have business with Mr. Moreland today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Norrington handed him a sealed letter from his writing desk, _Mrs. Elinor Treat_ curling across the address. “Deliver that, if you would.”

Theo placed the letter in his pocket, acknowledged the job, and excused himself, calling for the jolly boat.

Ashore, he found himself in front of the Treat house fairly quickly – motivated by a strong desire to get out of the mid-day sun as much as a kind of eagerness to complete the errand. On the whole, he liked the widow – she was a courteous, intelligent sort – and he liked the idea of giving credit where it was due.

From the dooryard, Theo heard someone – Mrs. Treat, he assumed – speaking in slow, hesitant French: “ – _encore quelques mauvais compliments_ ¬ – movice? _Mauvais_.” He hesitated on the step, while listening to the rustling of papers, and some almost inaudible commentary. “Badly. _Ha_. I made again …”

He was surprised when she greeted him at the step, swinging the door open only a few moments after he’d knocked. Gone was the blank-faced, dripping wraith of the Wharf – neat as a pin, Mrs. Treat stood in the sunlight, smiling the polite smile the well-bred used to cover up their puzzlement.

“Good day, Lieutenant Groves,” she said, “Please come in.”

“Mrs. Treat,” said Theo, making his respects.

“Can I offer you some refreshment?”

He followed her into the parlor, and her gesture to the glass next to her book. “I find it a little warm for tea,” she continued, “But you may not?”

Boston was not the Caribbean, but its summers were their own kind and class of unpleasant – or so he’d been discovering in the long afternoons, when even the harbor breeze had died and the sun lazed at its zenith like some debauched old Roman on his dining couch. Theo declined the offer of tea and said he’d join her, without exactly knowing what it was.

The widow bade him sit while she fetched the pitcher from the kitchen. Glancing idly around the parlor, he noted the details: volumes splayed out on the gleaming table where she’d been reading, richly-upholstered chairs, the family portrait set, not over the hearth, but where it commanded a view over the paneled room. Mrs. Treat passed by her painted double as she returned, explaining that, as her sister was with her fiancé’s family, and her children were with their relatives, and as the heat was too great for much to occur, she’d given her servants the rest of the day.

“It may be a little sour,” she said, handing him a glass of his own, “But I’ve brought a little honey if that’s not your taste. Now, Lieutenant, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I am here to extend an invitation,” Theo said, taking a sip of the offered beverage. It was a little sour (from what he assumed was _vinegar_?) but he’d have time to doctor it after saying his piece. “On behalf of the officers and crew of HMS _Garland_. His Majesty’s officers will host a gathering to honor the anniversary of the ascension of our King’s father to the throne, and request your attendance.”

Mrs. Treat said that was kind of them, but frowned a little at the end. _Surely they could have conveyed that in a note?_ she must have been thinking.

He produced Norrington’s letter, and went on. “You would be an honored guest. _The_ honored guest, in recognition of your conduct on Long Wharf.”

Not as honored as the Hanovers, he thought, but that went without saying. Theo smiled and stirred in a dollop of the honey, while the widow placed the letter on the table and refolded her hands in her lap.

“That is a very generous notion,” Mrs. Treat said, after a moment or two.

“You’ve done us a very great service,” Theo responded. He didn’t know the widow well enough to make the joke he wanted, but it was a _particular_ service to him, as well: it would be he or Nibley in charge without James Norrington, a prospect he liked only slightly better than that of losing one of his oldest friends in the service, even if he had been grim of late.

“I was only the fastest off the Wharf,” she demurred, “Any number of others would have done the same, had I been slower.”

“And we’d thank them, and in whatever way we could, had they done as you have. It was very brave of you, Mrs. Treat,” he went on, seeing she was – unsure? He didn’t think the reward out of proportion to the service rendered, but perhaps she thought about swimming differently, or the Massachusetts colonists did. Were that the case, an explanation was owed. “I have seen drowning men take their rescuers under with them, whether because they were too far gone to understand the help, or because a – an unstirring body, with his coat and his shoes and his sword, is a heavier burden than expected. Even if I had the ability, I think I would have hesitated to do as you did.”

“You cannot?”

“I cannot,” he replied, thought of reminding her of what he’d said on Long Wharf, and then thought better of it. “I’d never seen anything larger than the River Avon before I became a midshipman, and my first Captain, Bliss, thought it a more _beneficial_ use of time to teach his younger officers to stay aboard ship than what to do if we fell overboard.” 

He was smiling as he said this last, and it called up an answering expression in Mrs. Treat. “It is not a – a usual skill,” she admitted, refolding her hands again.

“It is an impertinent question, but I hope you’ll indulge me. How is it you know how to swim?”

“Have you ever been to Newport, Lieutenant?”

Theo shook his head.

“It is on island, perhaps fifteen miles long, at its greatest extent, and five miles wide, the same. The town itself is just huddled around the harbor, and my father’s house – well. Even as a girl, I could throw a stone from the dooryard and hit the water, if I put my mind to it. My mother and later step-mother thought it pretty foolish to have a band of children who could not save themselves from that present danger, not when a little effort might preserve them. And so, I learned.” She looked serious for a moment, but smiled, and returned his earlier jest about Captain Bliss with one of her own, “Still, Phebe – the woman my father engaged to teach us – took your Captain Bliss’s position. The best way not to drown was not to get in the water in the first place.”

“A sage opinion.”

Mrs. Treat agreed, with an inward kind of look. “Newport is a different place from Boston. You should see it someday.”

They spoke a little longer, enough for the widow to refill his glass ( _switchel_ , she said when asked, a little bewildered he needed explanation) and for him to listen sympathetically to her current battle with French grammar, courtesy of M. de Voltaire and ask after her children’s Latin studies, but he had official business with Moreland to attend to, and he couldn’t put it off any longer. 

Theo bade Mrs. Treat farewell, and in turn she thanked him and Commodore Norrington for their consideration, and promised to see them both at the ball. From the street, through the windows, he could see the widow resume her seat and stare at the letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD!
> 
> The shop that Groves dispatches one of his men to for tobacco did exist - John Singleton Copley's widowed mother ran a tobacco shop on/near Long Wharf in the late 1730s - which, I'm afraid, is just one of two obnoxious references to future-famous Bostonians in this chapter; Norrington, after consulting the advertisements in the _Gazette_ (founded by James Franklin, old brother of Ben, you know the rest), suggests for silversmiths/goldsmiths either John Burt, or Paul Revere. Buuuuuuuuut it's still the 1730s - Revere would have been Paul Revere, Sr., born Apollos Rivoire, as PRjr. wasn't even 4 yet.
> 
> Groves briefly mentions the Second Anglo-Dutch War in his internal monologue, specifically the Battle of Dungenness. He's exaggerating some of the events for effect (it wasn't just the Mediterranean), but perhaps not by much.
> 
> The Molasses Act giving so much trouble here is the 1733 act. Should they all be so lucky as to survive to 1764, I'm sure they'll have Opinions about the Sugar Act.
> 
> Nellie's taken a break from Latin grammar to read from Voltaire's _Lettres philosophiques_ / _Lettres sur les Anglais_ / _Letters on the English_ at the end, specifically from the first four letters, describing Voltaire's encounters with Quakerism in England. An English translation would have been available by 1738, but she hasn't come across one yet!
> 
> Lastly, Groves speculates at several points about swimming/ how many men he knows can swim - I've never seen good contemporary numbers, and ability to swim varied pretty widely not just by occupation, but also by race. On the one hand, so far as I've read, the Royal Navy tended not to encourage men, particularly enlisted men, to learn how to swim (some thinking it would help deserters escape); on the other English colonists had a tendency to see swimming as something that Native Americans and (enslaved and free) Africans did, and as a result looked on swimming a little suspiciously (how this interacts with earlier perceptions of witchcraft etc. I do _not_ know enough to make an educated statement about) - however much the Atlantic economy did coerce/utilize Native American and African aquatic labor and expertise. Phebe, the woman who Nellie recalls teaching her and her siblings to swim, was a part of the latter group. 
> 
> Nellie's parents' attitude towards teaching their children to swim, needless to say, was _not_ typical.


	6. A Kind of Orchestration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nellie takes on more debt, meditates on loss, and prepares herself for the officers' ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a blunt reference to English settlers committing atrocities at the end of King Philip's War about halfway through this chapter, in context of a larger comparison between New England and the Caribbean (and New England's 'godly' reputation); if you want to avoid that, skip the paragraph starting _He was preffered to Woods Rogers as an Enemy of Nassau’s Business..._

Lieutenant Groves’s footfalls, it seemed to Nellie, had scarcely faded when there was another knock on the door – though, she owned, she’d been so knocked-over with the Commodore’s missive that she’d lost track of herself, thoughts racing out in a hundred directions at once. A ball – the Hanoverian line – the guest of honor – 

What was she to do with all of that?

But – yes – there was that knock again, a little more impatient this time, and Nellie shifted the Lieutenant’s glass away to the mantel as she went to meet the next visitor, swinging wide the front door to meet young Captain Holly, his books under his arm and a frown pasted across his pale, weathered features.

“Mrs. Treat,” he said, paying impatient respects.

 _That bad?_ she thought, but did not say, only ushering the man into her parlor, moving aside her papers and Monsieur de Voltaire to make room for the _Constance_ ’s books, and Holly’s own mood – he shrugged off her congratulations on a safe return and her inquiries after the men of the _Constance_ , drumming his fingers against the mahogany top like a bored student in a drowsy Cambridge lecture.

She liked Holly, she reminded herself. She picked him for the _Constance_ for a reason – even if he seemed to be half-spoiling for a fight.

“There were no problems with Moreland or Norrington?”

“How could there be?” he scoffed, “We’ve done as you asked, a hold not even full of Jamaican molasses bought at Kingston with English prices, all papers fair and checked and all duties paid. Fucking Trelawney’s brokering peace with the Maroons and now the planters say they need our corn and dried fish even less than before. Dick Turpin himself couldn’t have plotted a better thieving.”

Nellie nodded, and opened the log to where the bill of lading had been stuck next to Holly’s accounts, and could not help but wince at the prices. _Hellfire._

“Hmph. Now you know why I look like I’ve been eating lemons. That agent – something Cornish, was thinking he might be a cousin of the Governor – all but tried to say I ought to pay him for the privilege of taking that salt cod off my hands, then tried to convince me it was rotted and it wasn’t worth a bucket of shit on a warm day anyway.”

“Was it rotted? I’ll speak to the merchant.”

Holly muttered that the fish was as rotten as the agent was honest, which got an ugly snort from Nellie. In their time, they’d both seen planters’ agents buy sacks of cornmeal that were as much sawdust as grain, or braids of onions that were more worm than anything – how green would a man have to be to believe those theatrics?

Still, Holly was right – the English in Jamaica tended to get their foodstuffs elsewhere, and you’d be lucky, some years, to get half in Kingston what you’d get in Santo Domingo. Added to that, English planters knew they had Walpole’s ear and Parliament’s too, and they charged an outrageous price for their sugar, molasses, and rum. A man’d never trade with them of his own free will, but that was where the Molasses Act – damn the parchment it was written on – came in. Buy in the British Caribbean, or pay a punitive duty.

_And who, in the Lord’s name, did that serve?_

She bit down the bitter feeling, knowing that it was the worst kind of self-delusion to think it was the New England merchants who were ground down by the Caribbean trade.

“Well,” said Nellie, after a few moments, “It wasn’t a loss. And you’re free of suspicion, which is better than four in five on Long Wharf can say.”

“Free of suspicion and profit.”

“Captain Holly, please.”

“It’s true, Mrs. Treat. My share of this won’t cover what I still owe Winship for my quarter of the _Constance_ , and his man has been and gone to say he expects what we agreed on last October – before any of this ever happened.”

Nellie felt her guts knot, and had a sour, metallic taste in her mouth. _Here_ was the problem, then – and Captain Holly grimaced and went on. “I wouldn’t ask if I hadn’t already been and gone to my brother and my sainted mother and old Captain Gardner, who still owes me for that last trip when the crew was all down with agues and fevers. It’s all the same. No sterling but a handful of paper promises and debts.”

“You think I have money in hand?” she blurted.

“I think Miss Coggeshall is marrying young Winship, and the father will be kinder to you than he is to me. Do you want Winship to take back control of the _Constance_? His nephew Roades is looking for a ship, and he’s the worst kind of captain – brutal _and_ stupid.”

He looked for a response, beginning to drum at the table-top again. Nellie, bristling (as you did, when someone felt they had to tell you what you already knew), took stock. There was any number of perfectly good, if vulgar ways to sum up how well she liked James Roades – too vulgar for a _respected_ matron to say aloud, even though she wanted to. He was pious in front of Reverend Price, but cheap with provisions and pay – and liberal enough with the lash that Tom Doodle, one of Hendricks’s men, who’d been the King’s man before deserting, said the one trip he made with Roades put him in mind of home. 

That kind of sour hatred was a fine fuel, something hot to think on, but it wasn’t really Holly’s point. It wasn’t just that Roades was a bad captain – it was that the men of the _Constance_ deserved better, and she, Nellie Treat, had the power and money to take care of it, if she would exert herself to do so. Inaction would be cheaper in the near-distance, but costly in money in the years to come. 

_Costly_. Nellie brought herself up short, with a bilious flush of shame. Roades as good as killed a man, once, and she was wobbling over the idea of saving costs? How could she contemplate doing nothing just to save her own purse?

Nellie, humiliated that she was thinking otherwise, fished out pen, ink, and paper from her messy pile, and pushed them towards Captain Holly. “Tell me what you need, and we’ll sign on it. I’ll need something written when I go speak with him.”

“Do you need a date of repayment, or – ?”

“No. Who knows how much longer the Navy will be here? Until then, no one will be clearing much profit.”

Captain Holly could not contest that, and quickly scrawled out what terms he needed to satisfy Mr. Winship, before handing them over to Nellie to review. She hid her wince, sketching out the costs in her head, but there was nothing else she could do with as clear a conscience as business allowed. Captain Holly shook her proffered hand, and she signed her name to the arrangement: a neat little _‘Elinor Coggeshall Treat’_ that sat apart from the date. Tested and blotted, she folded it into her pocket with a grim smile. “That should satisfy Mr. Winship,” she said.

He’d still have grounds to contest the crew and officers, she knew, but with the wedding in a few short weeks, it didn’t seem likely.

Nellie and Captain Holly reviewed the rest of the book and discussed the sale of the molasses, eventually canvassing what had happened in the last two months in both Boston and the Caribbean, and the prospects for selling the fall harvest. The hot afternoon was getting on, and Holly made to excuse himself – but not before nodding at a letter – _the letter_ – on the table. “That’s Norrington’s handwriting, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Are you – huh – I’d heard on the Wharf that Sargeant got caught with Dutch molasses.” He looked a little remorseful, but not much, and Nellie supposed that was why she liked Holly – that blunt, proficient way of his reminded her of Captain Treat. She sheared that line of thought off ruthlessly. “You’re not in danger, Mrs. Treat?”

“No more so than anyone else.”

That was not convincing, judging from Holly’s canted brow, so she continued. “It’s an invitation to – to a ball. Danger of tripping, mostly.”

“An invitation in the Commodore’s hand?”

Nellie sighed. “Can I offer you a drink, Captain Holly? It’s a long story.”

* * *

The next day, after an ugly and sleepless night, Nellie lay Commodore Norrington’s letter on the Bendish table after pleasantries had been exchanged and fragrant cups of tea poured, with an innocent-sounding “Aunt B, what do you know about this?”

Her aunt sipped daintily, looking at the offending article over her porcelain rim. Nellie watched her carefully, as she took in the handwriting which must have been familiar to her through her husband’s correspondence – but Aunt B maintained her look of polite interest and gave nothing away. “An invitation to the officer’s celebration, I imagine,” she said. The cup barely made a sound against the wide saucer as she set it aside.

 _Very well_ , thought Nellie, biting down a sigh, _Two can play this game_. “Of a kind.”

“Of a kind? May I read it?”

“Please.”

The seal was already broken, though Aunt B glanced at its design, and she quickly opened it to its contents. Nellie could have recited them to her – but that was not the point! She stirred her tea aimlessly while Aunt B skimmed, though she had added nothing; it seemed better than refolding her hands in her lap while she waited, listening to Lydia rehearsing her scales in the next room.

Nellie had felt that familiar spike of acid worry when she saw Lieutenant Groves on the doorstep, though she knew – she _thought_ she knew – she was clear after Sargent’s fines had been paid. _What if_ – what? Some new initiative of the Royal Navy? That ugly thought, that her life would be easier without Norrington and the rest of the Navy, had returned with a vengeance. Hendricks had seemed to hint, when he walked her and Susannah home, that what had happened on Long Wharf was no accident – and that Nellie hadn’t much endeared herself to the captains and owners of Boston. At least Hendricks and his friends would allow that _not_ acting would have put Nellie in a bad position. She’d saved a man from drowning before, and if anyone told His Majesty’s officers about _that_? It would all be gone.

She’d brought Groves into her parlor, and served switchel with shaking hands. And instead, the lieutenant had handed her the invitation. Rigidly correct salutation in rigidly correct handwriting, words marching across the page like the militia on training days – or the Marines through the harbor crowds, closing out the extraordinary request with the (yet again) rigidly correct _Jas. B. Norrington, Cdre_ , etc. etc…

At last, Aunt B spoke: “This is a great honor, my dear.”

 _Honor_. “It is a great thing. The guest of honor.”

“You are not pleased, I think.”

She wasn’t, but she didn’t want to say it out loud: on the one hand, Nellie flattered herself that she was clever enough to know opportunity when it struck her in the face, and on the other, she’d brought the letter to Aunt B with the suspicion that her Aunt had something to do with it – that she’d orchestrated this invitation, this honor with Nellie’s and the family’s well-being in mind. So Nellie only sipped her tea, and instead said she was concerned, and wanted Aunt B’s opinion – and that was all true enough, wasn’t it?

“You must accept the invitation and the honor, of course you must.”

“You think this will not breed resentment? I’m outsider enough already.” 

“It is a temporary elevation,” Aunt B said thoughtfully, “And that renders it fairly safe for you. No one imagines you are actually my superior, or Elizabeth Phips’s, for example – and amongst your family and friends, I think you’ll find a feeling of approval for the Commodore’s choice to honor you. After the – hmm – service you rendered him, it is only fitting that he does what is in his power to remind Boston that you are an honorable and worthy woman.”

Nellie silently added this instance of wondering why a woman’s reputation had to be simultaneously her most valuable, most easily damaged, and most commonly used possession to her already expansive collection of such moments.

“I know I did my name and reputation no favors, leaping off Long Wharf in my shift – and I know I can’t afford to snub the Commodore’s good will.”

“But?”

“I have to conduct business in this city, and no one has or will thank me for preserving Norrington’s life.”

“Has anyone said something to you on that score?”

She had no desire to incriminate Hendricks, and so was as vague as possible: “Only that we all have to cooperate in some ways with the Commodore, but not everyone regards cooperation the same way. It is possible to be too kind.”

“Others have advantages you do not.” 

But this would lead to a longer conversation, threaded between the uglier truths about her debts and lineage that it was bad manners to address aloud, and so Aunt B left it there. Nellie was only too happy to let her, and have the conversation turn instead to accepting the invitation and honor – that _of course, I shall accept_ , and Aunt B’s musings that, though Nellie had left off her mourning veil after her year of mourning, and had gone to parties and entertainments, she’d still dressed herself somberly and avoided major celebrations, and might it not cause comment if she broke precedent all in one evening?

Nellie found herself agreeing that she ought to wear something not grey the next day, though she didn’t think she’d like it. Rather than admit her discomfort, she brought up her most frivolous concern. 

“It’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve been danced, Aunt,” she said, fiddling with her mourning ring, “I’ll embarrass myself.”

“You shall have to hire a master,” replied Aunt B. “Now, let us consider who might fit the bill … ”

* * *

Nellie did not bring up brother John’s letter with Aunt B, though she knew she ought to have. There was a little bit of greed in it: she hadn’t gotten such a wad of paper in some time now, and even if much of it was a report, it was her _John_ in there. John, who she hadn’t seen since before her marriage – John, who’d been lost until Captain Treat came home one July with a broad smile and slim letter to “Mrs. Elinor Coggeshall Treat” in a rolling, familiar hand: 

_Nora!_ (he wrote) _You shld have written, you wicked Girl – never mind you didn’t know where I was – you shld have thrown a Letter into the Sea for me to find! Am I to learn such News from drunk Sailers in Nassau public Houses? Your Husband cheats at Cards you will be Interested to know, which I suspect is Your Doing_.

And so on.

This letter was not so joyful. There was the old nickname – only John and her late mother had ever called her that – and then a bad-tempered oath – and then:

 _Norrington – Lord help you, Sister. He may be the Punchline of every Port Ryal Jest on account of being Rejected by the former Governer’s Daughter in favor of the Blacksmith’s Apprentice before the Whole of the Town, and they may say his Name isn’t worth two bent Pins with the Admiralty – but he is_ not _to be Trifled with._

And so on.

If she’d had a mind inclined to blackmail, using some wicked secret from his time in Jamaica against him, she would have been disappointed ( _a ~~fucki~~ Franciscan has had more Fun than him, he wld do our Brother Peter proud_); instead, John catalogued what he and his Nassau circle knew of James Norrington’s time in the British Caribbean: the end of the last bout of hostilities with Spain, his blind good luck in escaping the tropical fevers that had scythed through Hosier and St. Lo and Hopson (the was a scrawled-through addendum there, Nellie could just make out her husband’s name and _Ague_ and she could have cursed her brother for writing such a trap into this letter, even if he’d thought better of it), Porto Bello galleons and the usual rounds of who owned St. Kitts and Sint Maarten, rum-runners and pirates and those ranging the gamut between. 

Nellie skimmed along over her brother’s enthusiastic handwriting. It was a simple matter to match up what he said to Aunt B’s reports from Uncle Bendish’s correspondents in London and elsewhere, which, while full up with the man’s accolades, tended inevitably to the events that had led to his current disgrace:

 _There was the business with Barbossa of the_ Black Pearl _kidnapping the former Governer’s Daughter, each story I’ve heard more Fantastical than the Last – and for some Time, the Tale was that they had Gone to Libertalia! A crew of Corpses? That takes the Meaning of our Jolly Rogers and Deaths Heads too far. There are Marvels and Awful things in this New World and I have seen them but we had in Nassau once some time ago provoked Barbossa’s ire and I can say from when his men sacked the Town that they Bled like any Man. Damned if I Know what those Stories mean._

At this rate, she thought, getting to a bad temper of her own, she’d have to ask Norrington what had happened with the _Black Pearl_ and her crew of ghosts. She’d wanted to brush off the tales, as Aunt B had, secure in the knowledge that there were wilder sea-stories for the telling on any corner in Boston – secure, and content with the definite knowledge that there had been a bloody confrontation such as was barely worth the noting in the Caribbean, and out of that entirely unremarkable circumstance came the Commodore’s jilting and an act of mercy for some brigand.

… and yet, every tale about Commodore Norrington inevitably contained those ghosts, like one of Lydia’s melodies where her right hand played one tune, and her left another, until at the end, they came together for a single note or phrase.

Nellie, who read and reread John’s letter over the next few days, excerpting little bits for Polly and Sam to listen to (how their Uncle John and Aunt Henrietta and their cats got on, mostly; Nellie didn’t want John’s account of running from the Spanish navy after unlawfully salvaging from a wreck off Florida to circulate in Norrington’s hearing) and considering what it might mean. _Ghosts_. Late one night, she padded through the darkness to the bookshelf, and pulled down Mather’s _Magnalia Christi Americana_ , and leafed through the old Puritan’s accounts of the strange and the wonderous in New England: his condemnation of the awful trials at Salem in her grandmother’s time; the weird vision of a sunken ship returned to New Haven in Connecticut Colony. Just _stories_ from the last century, from the years when Puritan colonists saw the Devil in every shadow. If there’d been evil afoot in Salem, surely it had not been those wretched and condemned; whatever had happened in New Haven, there could not have possibly been such ship of ghosts, though Captain Treat had told her, across their counterpane, of how the sea shimmered like a fae kingdom, and showed you things that were not quite there, or were beyond the firm line of the horizon.

She snapped the book shut in frustration – Lydia’s songs, Cotton Mather’s Calvinist excesses! If Captain Treat could hear her thoughts he’d be doubled over in laughter. _Ghosts_ – why think of _ghosts_ when she had numbers to tally, ships to manage, train oil and whalebone and lumber to purchase, contracts to negotiate with stern Mr. Bishop, and her sister’s wedding to oversee? _There are no ghosts._ Nellie forced herself to instead think of the _Constance_ and Captain Holly last week, and the help she had offered to him.

Holly would keep his sloop, and Nellie the gratification of being more just than world around them – as far as the meat of satisfaction went, though, that was a little like gnawing on a bone to stave off the pangs. At best, a handful of pounds or some goods in kind from the _Constance_. 

Nellie checked those numbers in her ledger, her low expectations on the page. Gratitude couldn’t be marked, until translated into gold, or lengths of linen, or bricks of tea, and so whatever Holly would do for her was a note for her memory to keep. She locked the book up again, and turning back to the thick packet she’d kept on her person for some days.

What else could John have for her? Nellie leafed back through the pages, trying to hear her brother’s voice as she reread. He had heard of a wreck ¬ _a proper Spanish Galleon too Pondorous with blood Gold to weather a Sudden Storm some time ago_ – which was a little more specific than Hendrick’s verbal report, but not much. _By the Time you are in Receipt of this I shall know more and will Write by next Trusted Messengar. The Usual Terms?_

When she’d read that the first time, she was close to weeping with relief – good news for John and the crew of divers, and selfishly, good news for her. In the past, she’d sent the supplies they needed – food, naval stores, even gunpowder! – and would take a share as payment. _Gold_. Actually gold – not debts, not a promissory note, not the paper money that came out of the inland settlements from landbanks desperate for currency! She spent the last of her gold coins on the portrait, after clearing out what debts she could. There was no way that John’s next venture would bear fruit before Mary’s wedding, but a future benefit – smuggled, to be sure, but what was a modest purse of golden doubloons to secreting away whole barrels of pungent molasses?

On that day, she imagined she’d be able to smile, truly smile in Commodore Norrington’s stern face.

Still, however appealing the idle dream, she’d a ways to go before then – months, no doubt, maybe more. _If it pleased the Lord, not more_. Nellie fetched another malodorous tallow taper from the kitchen, and held the last page – backhanded compliments terminating in a warning – up to its feeble light:

_He was preffered to Woods Rogers as an Enemy of Nassau’s Business, tho it is an Easy Bar to Clear for any Man to not abuse his Fellows in so Shocking a manner as to Keel-Haul, and Cdre. Norrington has never Dissolved a Lawful Elected Assembly either. We are well Acquainted with all forms of Cruelty in these jewely Islands, moreso than you in your Land of Temperate Yeomen I think since it has been some two Generations since our Saintly Ancestors stuck Metacomett’s head on a Pike, and so you may trust me when I say that N. at least was no Crueler than the Law required, and always had some business with Spaniards when the Governr and Planters cried for more Guns to Point at their wretched Slaves._

_Smuggling is Not a Hanging Offence my girl, but you are Courting some wicked-toothed Shoals. You wld find a Welcome here and a Friendly Port if you Must Flee, but as you cannot but Run before a Storm I advise you as yr. clever and loving brother that you Ought to Suspend yr. smuggling until the Admiralty are Satisfied that both Norrington and Boston have been brought to Heel and their Lessons Learned. Are you Prepared to stand the Full Measure of the law, Nora? You cannot be. Do Not Cross Norrington._

* * *

Polly and Sam, so used to Nellie as their tutor, didn’t bother to hide their laughs behind their hands when alerted to the new arrival in the daily rounds.

“I have engaged a dancing master,” she said to her dear ones, the morning of her first lesson. With Mary at the Corcellises, Hal Bendish had volunteered (or been volunteered by his mother; Hal was so cheerful and obliging to all that it was difficult to say) to mind Sam and Polly’s lessons while Nellie tripped around the parlor, and was expected shortly.

Sam asked why at the same time that Polly scowled: “But you already know how?”

“Not so well as I would like to,” Nellie told her daughter, as she poured out more switchel into her son’s glass, “You forget how to do a thing, if you haven’t done it long enough. Take this lesson from me, dearests – don’t neglect what you’ve learned, or you’ll spend useful time learning it again.”

She spoke lightly, and she thought herself a little cowardly for doing so: Polly and Sam were old enough and clever enough to know that their mother hadn’t been dancing because she had been in mourning, as they had been, and this was because their father had died, and so had their sister. It felt wrong to hop over that awful fact, like it were a puddle in the road instead of a gaping hole, a great rift between the way things had been and the way things were now – but Nellie did, fearful to dwell too long on it.

Sam frowned. “But why must you learn again?”

“I have received an invitation to a ball, some weeks from now, and would like not to trip in front of Governor Belcher.”

“A ball! Whose?”

Polly’s excitement tarnished a bit when Nellie smiled and told her, and she protested that the Commodore and his men had seized Charlotte Delaney’s father’s latest cargo, and Mr. Delaney had been in such a terrible temper over it that his daughter, who could usually be relied upon for some kind of trouble or horrible story, had been in a sulk. That really had sunk the Navy in her daughter’s regard, no matter how eager she had been for tales of their adventures in the Caribbean. “Why would you go?” she asked, with a frown

 _Why, indeed?_ It was one thing to remind her daughter that it was sometimes incumbent upon adults to be polite (and here, accept this invitation) where being rude was more appealing; it was another thing to think to herself that she really did not have much of a choice. Oh, she could refuse, but it would look like a rebuke to Norrington; for the rest of Boston (some of whom, after all, had seen her in her shift and stays and precious little else) she had to behave in such a way that plastered over that act, and reminded them that she was honorable and of good character – for Mary, in the immediate future, but someday Polly and Sam would have need of a good family name as well. One impulsive deed couldn’t be wiped away with another.

But then Hal arrived, books under his arm and a broad smile across his face, and Nellie helped Susannah clear away the crumbs of the morning’s meal to make space for the classroom. She crossed the hall to the parlor to wait.

It wasn’t long. 

Nellie heard footfalls in the dooryard, and at the stroke of the hour Susanna ushered Mrs. Lloyd, an elegant black woman of an age with Nellie, into the parlor. They greeted each other, and Nellie invited her to sit and review the contract, while offering refreshment to dull the stultifying heat – an appreciated offer, even if Mrs. Lloyd’s gossamer-fine fichu and light dress – airy in the way that the new French gowns tended to be – seemed to be coolness itself.

(Smoothing her hands over the perfectly suitable grey linen, which she’d worn for all spring and summer occasions, Nellie found herself feeling a little dowdy, too – and recalled Aunt B’s injunction to leave off the last signs of her mourning before the ball. Her best gown – the blue floral silk, the one she’d been painted in – she and Susanna had pulled out of the chest in which it had been forgotten, and it had been pinned to her bed-curtains to let the worst fold-creases fall out.)

Mrs. Lloyd affixed her signature to the bottom of both copies, and folded one away to her pocket. “Now then,” she said, eying the empty space made by pushing the parlor’s furniture to the side, tapping a silver-handled stick against the floor, “If you’ll show me your minuet, Mrs. Treat, we shall go from there.”

Polly, Nellie recalled as she curtsied to an invisible partner, had the habit of huffing like a winded horse when told to practice her sums – and, like her daughter, she felt tempted to do the same in the face of the minuet. But Nellie wasn’t ten years old, and she was paying for the pleasure of these lessons, to mind the insistent count of the steps and the advice of Mrs. Lloyd, who had long been in London, who was currently watching wordlessly as Nellie went through her steps, feeling rusted, a badly-maintained ship getting cranky in a stiff breeze. The metaphors weren’t hers, but she thought of them nonetheless – Captain Treat still watching her from the portrait.

She came to the end, and bobbed her curtsey clumsily, which Mrs. Lloyd happily did not mention. “Let us work on the possible figures of the minuet, then.”

It wasn’t that Nellie disliked the minuet; she had been happy to dance it almost as long as she understood what it was, and had willingly taken her place in the ranks at dozens of gatherings to do honor to the company. It wasn’t even that she missed Captain Treat (though she assuredly did), for the vagaries of status sometimes had partnered her with another man, and she’d done just as well then. It was, she thought, that she had never been first before.

Nellie tried that thought, like she would a length of linen or cotton to check its fineness and count the threads. She hadn’t ever been first, but she’d had her hopes – that she and Captain Treat would continue to rise in the world, that she’d secured for herself and her children a future less turbulent than her early life had been. Sure, she had known there were limits: Captain Treat offered better wages than most, and shunned the most lucrative trade in the Atlantic – and the foulest. But they’d done well – well enough that they’d crept up in the ranks, become steadily more comfortable (and more), knowing that there would be a line they’d never get past, but never having encountered it, what matter was it yet?

Oh, people had stared at her, watching her steps as closely as an assessor minded pearls, but by the time she arrived in Boston, she’d been married, her position in the world bobbing on the tide but inexorably fixed to Captain Treat’s: a team, a matched pair straining with the same yoke. Gawking could be waved away, when she was _wife_ , for marriage meant the halving of the burden – less so now, for _widow_. Respect for the name alone was a poor replacement. 

“Mrs. Treat?” came Mrs. Lloyd’s voice, fine and a little impatient.

Nellie had lost her steps in her wool-gathering. Abashed, she apologized, and the counting began again.

The lessons continued daily, which was as agreeable to Nellie as Mrs. Lloyd could render it – agreeable enough, for Nellie liked Mrs. Lloyd’s easy confidence and appreciated her directness. Nellie curtsied endlessly, in those hours. Her knees and neck ached from the exercise, even if she had to laugh at herself when Mrs. Lloyd described her reverences as ‘a little decayed.’

 _Recall_ , Mrs. Lloyd had said, _That as you dip your head and bend your knees, these movements are connected, and that neither the beginning not the end should be a surprise_.

A thing easier said than done – the curtsey, and the mincing steps of the minuet. Mrs. Lloyd had called it a kind of orchestration, like the different melodies of strings and winds together produced a much greater effect, or (with a nod to the late Captain Treat, whose painted effigy oversaw the lesson with the same leaded look that he’d never had in life) the crew working different sails at once to tack a ship. Nellie had far more experience with the latter than she’d ever had with the former, but held the idea of many coalescing into one effort as she dipped and stepped and plie-ed and turned repeatedly in her parlor, resolutely not imagining who her partner in this would be, in just a handful of days – not him, and not the strange betweenness of accepting Commodore Norrington’s invitation while daily plotting to subvert the order he brought with him.

Captain Hendricks arrived one stifling afternoon, in the middle of Nellie’s lesson – she would have suspected it was an accident, if Hendricks hadn’t been smiling so broadly his hands couldn’t hide it.

“Is it urgent?” Nellie asked petulantly, coming to the tail of yet another “Z” she’d traced across her floor, before moving to turn hands with an invisible partner – and Mrs. Lloyd, still counting off the steps with her silver-headed stick, looked skeptically at the newcomer.

“You must be Mrs. Lloyd – how d’you do, madam? No, Mrs. T, not urgent – wanted your opinion on whale oil, that’s all.”

Having declared that it could wait, Hendricks did: pouring himself switchel from the pitcher and pulling a book from her shelf, he folded himself in an out-of-the-way corner. Mrs. Lloyd addressed him some once or twice, and he responded more respectfully than he ever did to Nellie – though, she supposed, that was what twelve years’ acquaintance would do to you – even stood in for Nellie’s partner when asked and excused himself back to his seat afterwards. When Mrs. Lloyd had finished the day’s work, he finally allowed himself his laugh.

Nellie scowled. “Whale oil?”

“Sure. My mate, Mr. Johnson’s brother’s in Greenland again, of all places – according to his sister at Aquinnah – the last voyage ended with a hold full of oil and whalebone, though the captain lost a few toes to the cold. It was profitable enough for him, and Mr. Johnson says there’s been a new ship going a-whaling every year.” 

Unsure where Hendricks was going with that line of thought, Nellie recited the cost of train oil in Kingston, Nassau, and London against what she’d paid for it in Boston, in from Sherburne or Homes Hole or elsewhere, concluding that, depending on the quality of the oil, it was a profitable trade – if not enough to support one alone.

Hendricks replied that he’d heard Thomas Hancock had been making good profits off selling it in England, and since Norrington wasn’t supposed to be concerned much with that route, it had its attractions – but not whaling itself. “No fears, Mrs. T. It’s red work, and I’m not much for that. No, no. I wanted to see if what they were saying on the waterfront was true.”

“What?”

“That Widow Treat’s leaving off her mourning,” he said, with a knowing look, “Since, according to some patrons of the Red Lion, _We’d all seen her leave behind that grey sack of hers_.”

Nellie ignored the lewd implications as she ran her hands over the fine grey linen that she’d continued to wear, even after Susanna and Sally had uncovered – had set out to air what she had worn in better times. “Clearly the wits were mistaken.”

“And yet she dances.”

“A command performance.”

Hendricks clicked his tongue, like a disappointed schoolmaster, saying too seriously, “So it is true, then? Mrs. Elinor Coggeshall Treat, the officers’ honored guest?”

“It is true,” she agreed. “But I haven’t much of choice in the matter.”

Her friend shook his head, and said he didn’t see anyone holding a knife to her throat, to which Nellie shot back that she’d had one ship in serious trouble already, and if she started acting wary of or – the Lord forbid – _snubbing_ Commodore Norrington it’d be a short while until she had more. 

This Hendricks acknowledged, though he didn’t seem to like it much. “I suppose your Aunt had something to do with it?”

“Nothing she will admit, and I have asked her directly. I know,” Nellie sighed, and fidgeted with her mourning ring, “I know she is thinking of my interests, and Mary and Polly and Sam.”

“But you wish she wouldn’t.”

She flashed a smile that probably looked more pained than anything. It wasn’t that she wished her Aunt wouldn’t – when she counted up her hurts and her longings, and found herself missing her life before, and her partner more than anything in it, Nellie felt herself an ingrate to reject any help. But – and here she floundered – it was not that she needed help that rankled, either. Only that – only that her choices were limited, and the consequences of failure so frightening – her home, her good name, maybe even her children! 

Hendricks crossed the room and lay a calloused palm on her shoulder. “Chin up, Mrs. T. It can’t be like this forever.”

* * *

Nellie woke uneasily, the day of the officer’s ball, having dreamed of times past and the loved ones she had buried – the particular ‘crack’ that Jenny’s teething beads had made when she threw them against the floor, the way her husband had seemed to always start singing too high for his voice even stone sober. The empty bed felt like judgment, like punishment.

She pushed herself through the morning.

Casting her mind back over the last two weeks, she thought of Polly and Sam’s matched looks of skepticism at their mother’s dancing and the reappearance of color in her wardrobe, Holly’s predicament and Hendricks’s concern, eventually catching upon the last parts of her conversation with her aunt, after all the merriment over dancing lessons had faded down. There would be dancing, and of course she had to present herself well, for her name and family – yes, there was that, and then there was the other part of the conversation – a natural sequel, for what was a woman’s reputation but an advertisement? 

_My dear, have you given any thought to remarriage?_

Nellie’d taken at least one blow to the gut in the misspent part of her youth, and she thought of that feeling just then: the sudden blossom of pain, the gasping for air, the curling over double to protect herself.

Remarriage.

 _Of course_ , Nellie’d replied – _Of course I’ve thought of it_. Thought of it, and cast the idea as far away as she could manage. The idea made her insides twist like – like a boling knot – to a far less useful purpose. Remarriage offered opportunity – and danger. She’d seen stepfathers fritter away their wives’ money on themselves (like her father) or their own blood children, and (Nellie ruefully thought) Commodore Norrington was making it hard enough for her to keep her hands on her money without some interfering newcomer out for his own interest added to the pot. _Not seriously_ , she’d amended, for Aunt B.

Her aunt had flashed a taut smile, and warned that even if she was not thinking of it, she could not count on others doing the same.

_Who?_

An unworthy question. Nellie really had not wanted to know who’d been sizing her up for the altar, imagining himself the master of her home and the step-father of her children, but she’d been knocked back on her heels by the proposition and the question was the only one she could think of to ask. Aunt B had listed off names, familiar names – Cortauld, a recent widower, who’d needed as much minding as his seven children; Loring, whose fortunes were as good as his temper was bad; one of Margaret Hutchinson’s wealthy Sanford cousins, in business with Godfrey Malbone back in Newport – _Newport_! But Sanford and Malbone traded in human lives – _man-stealers_ – and dealing in molasses and coffee and logwood was bad enough as it was. 

_No_ , Nellie had shaken shook her head. Not for her and her children.

And so Aunt B had let it lie: both she and Nellie believed men needed wives who complemented their deficits (and so the reverse), but a woman, had she the luxury of choice, needed to decide for herself which men were worth their deficits. If it was not imperative that she remarry at this moment, then she could wait until she found a prospect she liked better. It was a matter of surviving until such a time, she thought, unbraiding her hair to begin the day – 

Surviving, yes, and in the meanwhile surviving what promised to be an uncomfortable evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one were supposed to be combined, but, uh. Oops.
> 
> Historical notes!
> 
> Captain Holly, of the _Constance_ , refers scornfully to Edward Trelawny, the British colonial governor of Jamaica from April of 1738, whose tenure of office was notable for the end of the First Maroon War, in which the Leeward and Windward Maroon communities forced the British colonial government to acknowledge their autonomy, with some noteable caveats. It seems that British colonies in the Caribbean tended not to rely as much on the North American colonies for their food supply as other European-colonized islands, but demand could go up in times of war - hence Holly's bad-tempered assessment that peace is going to be bad for business. Perhaps he ought to turn highwayman, like Dick Turpin, instead? Many fortunes in Boston were made or solidified by provisioning or supplying British troops in the various wars of the 18th century - up to a point, of course.
> 
> Nellie's brother John, writing from Nassau, canvasses a very speculative career for Commodore Norrington - the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727-1729 (and the disaster that was the blockade of Porto Bello, which did lead to thousands of deaths from disease) and the scattered flare-ups of tensions in the European-colonized Caribbean in between the major conflicts. John, born and raised in Newport like Nellie (though left for Nassau not long before Nellie's marriage), doesn't think much of colonists' behavior in either place - referring bluntly to King Philip's War/Metacomet's War/Metacom's Rebellion 1675-6, between Wampanoag (and allies among Narragansett, Nipmuck, Sakonnet, & others) and New England colonists and their indigenous allies, which resulted in, among other things, the capture and sale into Caribbean slavery of about 1,000 Wampanoags and allies - and the killing of Metacom, whose head was displayed in Plymouth for years afterwards.
> 
> I swear, over a decade ago, I read an interview with one of the writers, who said that Woodes Rogers was an inspiration for Norrington (I'm positive they also said Hornblower in the writers' commentary, so ???); at any rate, Rogers as governor of the Bahamas did disband the Bahamas' local assembly over (of all things) taxes, during his second term; it's probably been a decade since I last read anything seriously about the man, so while the real Rogers may not have keel-hauled anyone, his counterpart in _Black Sails_ did. If one pirate story's true, why not all of them?
> 
> Finally: the minuet. Despite my best efforts, I still feel like I have no idea what I'm talking about. Dancing masters/ Dancing Instructors advertised their tutelage in every major British colonial newspaper, frequently emphasizing both the importance of dancing well for one's social life, as well as their own skill and knowledge gained in major European cultural centers; women instructors were less common, but certainly not unheard of or unlikely. As to the actual dance - well, that's what the party's for, isn't it?


	7. As One Half-Drowned to Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the _Teal_ arrives in Boston Harbor, public unrest is afoot, and Commodore James Norrington largely does not enjoy himself at the officer's ball.

He and his cot were grown as estranged as Montagues and Capulets, but in the odd hours of sleep he found at his desk chair, James Norrington dreamed of the water: the cold, the pressure, the fading of the light, how quiet the world became only a few feet below. He had been all of five years of age, hadn’t he been? Barely able to spell, much less swim; it was unlooked-for mercy that saved him. A debt. _A brand_. It was easier to think of the sharp dirk that fell from his hand, the heaviness of his new coat, the green water turning darker.

Perhaps it was mercy, this time, that his debt was to Mrs. Treat, as respectable as the next Boston matron. Perhaps it was mercy, too, that he’d been unconscious – that he’d turned to see who had hailed the widow one moment, and been soaked through and spluttering over a barrel the next. There had been no return of the great cold and quiet – embarrassment, anger, and shame, yes, but nothing of that freezing panic, when the boy realized himself beyond help.

At least, not while he was awake.

From the quarterdeck, he heard the last peal of seven bells fade away, the murmuring of Tollemache and Sandys conferring. Nearly midnight. Norrington abandoned his troubling report to the Admiralty, and went to the cabin windows, swung open to catch every shred and wisp of breeze. The oily swell of Boston Harbor rolled endlessly beneath.

* * *

There was a great commotion in the _Garland_ ’s midshipmen’s berth – or so Groves reported on the morning of the officer’s ball. Jarsdel’s clothes-brush had gone missing. No doubt Rodd or Lawless, two of the more senior midshipmen, had ‘requisitioned’ it in preparation for the evening, as was their conception of the privileges of rank, but Sandys had jumped in on behalf of little Jarsdel, accusing the two older boys of having helped themselves to shirts from his chest, Lawless turned the accusation back on Sandys for stealing his mutton the week before, some very rude words about Rodd’s parentage were hurled in time for St. John (the most senior) to hear them and mistake himself as the target, and so on. Cooper, the junior master’s mate, had brought it to Groves’s attention when his attempts to quiet the young gentlemen went unheeded. 

Norrington looked up from the mess he’d made of his desk, sure he looked exactly like what he was: furious and sleepless, another corpse bewitched to walk the earth. “And what end, Mr. Groves?” 

“They have been brought to see reason,” replied his first, who did not think this a very serious affair, but (Norrington assumed) had brought the scuffle to his attention as amusement or distraction, or both. Groves held his hat under his arm, standing respectfully at attention, while a smile warred with a sterner look for possession of his face. Angwen, his steward, had been in, hadn’t he? Norrington looked across the cramped cabin to an untouched tray, and the cold coffee weighing down the letters of Mr. Avery, of Ipswich. Groves had a baleful look when Norrington looked back up, and allowed himself to be dismissed with only a brief observation that too much beef might dull the wit, but the bard of Avon had been remarkably silent on the topic of mealy porridge.

Alone again, Norrington pushed the cup aside with a clatter, the coffee sloshing out and obscuring some of the Cape Ann merchant’s earliest warnings: _complained of Desertion_ and much that followed wiped away to nothing. Where was his blotter paper? Pushing a few piles aside to no result, he grabbed his latest attempt at a report to the Admiralty to save the letter – which was, he thought, ill-temperedly, all of a piece.

Avery’s letter was dated to the 1st June, better than two months ago. If he’d only – 

What? 

Read importance into an insignificant clause, mired in a letter complaining of the dousing effect strict enforcement of duties had on commerce? 

_Let Avery complain_ , Norrington had scornfully thought, on first receipt. It was Nibley’s task to encourage the merchants and ship-owners to follow the law, and no one in Massachusetts would thank him for it. Nibley himself, in his reports, owned that some several men had deserted the _Teal_ as well, vanishing into the bustling waterfront – some probably halfway to Barbados by now. It was a guaranteed constant of life in His Majesty’s Navy, and frankly preferable to loss caused by disease.

But it hadn’t just been Avery’s first letter, as his tide of correspondence indicated.

Another from Avery, 7th July – complaints of the seizure of the _Martha Anne_ , another warning that men had deserted the _Teal_. Hodgkins, another merchant of Ipswich, another part-illicit cargo – 24th May, 13th June, 29th July. Vinson. Elwell. Reverend Rogers, of Ipswich. Reverend Bradstreet, Annisquam. Respected men, in their little towns, stubbornly hanging onto what Nibley had pointedly described as _a Craggish Strip of Land only Less Crooked than its English Inhabitants by Some Few Degrees_. Mrs. Bendish had been at pains to describe its fisheries, and what potential therein lay, only to digress into the contested history of the place between the Separatists at Plymouth and their cousins in Massachusetts Bay, which was old history when Edmund Andros tried to govern New England and failed, and by now Andros was almost a harmless memory…

His thoughts were wandering again. What was important was this: over a dozen letters these past few months, oozing portents like water from a badly-made barrel, and he, Commodore James Norrington, had dismissed them. Oh, he could tell himself that the business of enforcing the King’s laws in Boston would have overwhelmed three _Garland_ s, and that by many accounts, Nibley was carrying out his appointed task with a pleasing efficacy – a relief! Norrington had had many a sleepless night on that score, with the late Captain Munro of the _Teal_ buried at sea, and a young lieutenant, only known by his rumored family connection to the new senior Naval Lord, suddenly thrust into power. He could tell the Admiralty that, too, and then march into one of Boston’s many churches to pray he had not much farther to fall. 

There had been a handful and more desertions: Jones, Nash, Fairclough and Ardley, ordinary seamen; Fuller and Davies, landsmen; MacInnes, able seaman. It would have been nothing to his long-ago _Dauntless_ , but to the little _Teal_ , hardly better than a sloop? 

Nibley had _not_ taken the desertions in stride: the latest letters from Cape Ann had come in by a messenger on a lathering pale horse: _entered Houses without Permission or Cause_ – _boarded Diverse Vessels by force_ – and, most damningly – _Seized one Nehemiah Parsons, son of John Parsons of Gloucester, claiming him to be Thomas Fuller, Landsmen, as well as William Wyllys who he claims to be Anthony Nash, Ordinary Seaman, and has Threatened Sundry More_.

The anger of those towns had come flooding in, battering about the _Garland_ and bringing such rotten fruit as a new letter from Governor Belcher which was three parts a cock’s crowing and one part useless advice. Reverend Rogers had been circumspect in his last letter, but Avery had had no such compunctions – Parsons and Wyllys as good as kidnapped, _what Precedent for such Impressment outside of a Period Of War_ , good English subjects ready to launch a boarding party of their own. Norrington had recalled the _Teal_ immediately, writing orders he’d drafted four times to leach his anger out. 

This was all only a few days past. Nibley and the _Teal_ had sailed into Boston harbor yesterday, lines trim and the red ensign snapping in the breeze, an arrival Norrington had simultaneously been impatient for, and dreading. With the help of such men as Lieutenant Governor Phips and John Bendish, he could repair the damage in Cape Ann. Nibley, though – Nibley as a problem was eating at his now-infamous imperturbability. 

(And his men had noticed. The _Garland_ was not so large nor so heavily-built that he couldn’t hear mutterings, that _the old man didn’t blink when that girl rejected him in front of the almighty and all of Jamaica – and **now** he’s going to pieces_. It was beneath him to take notice, and when Groves brought it up, he dryly replied that he could only hope John Smibert’s portrait would be more flattering.)

When Nibley presented himself, he’d asked for his report, coolly reprimanded the acting-Captain for the misdeeds he had admitted to, accepted the acknowledgement of responsibility the young Lieutenant offered him, and sent the man back to the _Teal_ to await further orders. What else could be done, at present?

Spread across his desk was all the evidence of what had transpired, but he had extended the courtesy of an invitation to Nibley as much to keep an eye on him as any semblance of honor. Norrington downed the cold muddy dregs of his coffee, and sat down to begin his report to the Admiralty anew.

* * *

He did not remember much of the morning and afternoon of the ball, save for the arrival of further angry communications from the shore, and the by-now routine mumblings of Mr. Jarsdel, working over troublesome passages from Caesar’s commentaries while he stood his watch.

Angwen returned as the late summer sun began to draw down. Looking askance at the cold beef and bread that Norrington hadn’t touched since its arrival early in the afternoon watch, he laid out clean linens and the formal uniform so recently rescued from Boston Harbor – a sobering thought, which at least temporarily pushed Nibley and the Cape Ann problem out of his mind. He was grateful to Mrs. Treat, for her quick thinking and brave conduct; that it was unexpected wasn’t a mark against the widow, but … well. When a woman was referred to as ‘capable,’ it usually referred to her housekeeping, her ability to act as her husband’s second or steward – not to her ability and willingness to chance the deeps. Who would blame him for assuming the former, and not the latter? And had he not tried, with the advice of her Aunt and Uncle Bendish, to make his appreciation of her conduct clear? 

It was unjust, he supposed, that through no fault of her own a pall had been cast over the officers’ gathering, and Nibley’s conduct overshadow the widow’s – unjust, and it left Norrington with the sour taste of ingratitude in his mouth. 

Of his own preparations for the evening, he recalled nothing – trusting routine and rote memory to walk him through shaving and dressing, the business of leaving the ship with Midshipman St. John (who was at least older and wiser than Lieutenant Tollemache), the noisome streets between the wharves and the Blue Anchor on Water Street, its proprietor outlined against the hectic light within. Groves spoke with Monk, that he recalled; the bells of the city rang out eight o’clock in the dusk, and the guests, the Bostonians began to arrive.

Ingratitude again – Norrington only noticed the widow’s entrance because she arrived with the Lieutenant Governor and his lady, hanging back respectfully while the Phipses greeted him and his officers. Phips's long face was shadowed; while the man himself was perfectly courteous, there was no question he was still thinking of the reports from Cape Ann, and of the letters from Ipswich, Gloucester, and Manchester. It was a testament to his manners that he neither scowled nor flinched when introduced to the lieutenants of the _Garland_ and the _Teal_ , ending with the offending Nibley. A few further words were exchanged, and the Phipses moved on into the long rooms, and behind them … 

Mrs. Treat, all powder and brilliant floral silk, swept up with an elegant curtsey, graciously thanking him for his kind notice and invitation.

Norrington return her courtesy with a low bow and politeness of his own, marveling a little at her transformation; apart from the disaster on Long Wharf, he’d only ever seen the widow in her somber greys and blacks and practical caps. A sobering thought followed: this was not strictly true. He _had_ seen the widow in that very dress once before – obscured by a damask-draped table and the little girl perched on her hip, Mrs. Treat was wearing the same dress in the portrait hung in Mr. Smibert’s studio. He stowed the realization away, to be reviewed later if necessary, for they had further obligations.

“I believe you to be already acquainted with the officers of the _Garland_ ,” he said, as Mrs. Treat greeted Groves, Greene, and Tollemache, “Please allow me to make the officers of the _Teal_ , lately arrived, known to you. Lieutenant Nibley, her acting Captain –” here Nibley, at least temporarily chastened, made a painstakingly correct bow, “– and Lieutenant Kemble, her first.” Kemble, six months removed from his Lieutenant’s examination, sketched a bow that was more eager than correct, before darting a glance at Nibley for guidance.

Mrs. Treat gave no sign that she had heard of the _Teal_ ’s troubles, or of Nibley’s misconduct, and was the soul of graciousness besides. Not everyone was so kind. Mr. Hutchinson and his wife, usually staunch supporters of his efforts to enforce the rule of law, showed their strain when greeting the officers, and Governor Belcher, irascible at the best of times, could not decide whether to rejoice at the mud which had splashed up on the Navy, or to be thunderously disapproving of Nibley’s autocratic conduct. Some snubbed Nibley, some were politely poisonous; Norrington judged it best that he keep his own feelings private and said nothing to really encourage or discourage what could be said within the bounds of politeness.

At length, though, the musicians sat at the head of the long rooms, and sounded their chords; the noise of the gathering began to subside as the Bostonians pushed to the edges, and cleared the center of the rooms. Mrs. Treat allowed herself to be escorted to the floor with a polite smile, and made an able – even _capable_ – partner, responsive and quick to pick up his intentions, and completely unperturbed by the eyes and commentary of the room.

There was not much else to remember, on that score; after their last courteous flourishes, Norrington escorted her to the head of the room, to stand in the position of honor. A little flushed in the cheek, the widow stood as imperturbable as a sentry watching the Governor and Mrs. Phips dance, and then the Lieutenant Governor with Mrs. Hutchinson, and so on through the ranks. _It was much like the average parade or show of force_ , he’d thought of the minuet, once or twice as a younger man; there was comfort to be had in regularity and rules, so long as one knew them and abided by them.

 _Rules_ – but there was Nibley again, intruding into his thoughts. As much as he tried to put it out of his mind, some remnant of worry kept creeping back in. When Miss Coggeshall took to the floor, he forcefully put thoughts of the lieutenant’s misconduct out of his mind, knowing that he was being a poor partner. He spoke quietly. “Your sister has always lived in Boston?”

Mrs. Treat glanced at him, then resolutely and politely back at the floor. “Yes,” she replied. “She came with me from Newport, when I was first married.” The widow paused a few moments, following her sister’s progress across the floor with a kind of fond concern, and while he waited for her to speak again, Norrington sketched out for himself how many years were likely between Mrs. Treat and Miss Coggeshall. Eight? Ten? Mary Coggeshall would have been younger than even poor Midshipman Jarsdel, and, so far as his limited experience with child-rearing went, would have needed much more minding. Mrs. Treat might have been as much mother as sister, at times. Before he could think on that too long, though, the widow spoke again: “I was worried the transition would be a difficult one, for such a young girl. But my sister has a happy talent for making friends wherever she goes,” 

Norrington agreed: Mary Coggeshall was kind and amiable, her note of thanks for the loan of the _Aeneid_ appreciated when received. He looked at the widow again. “But she is not leaving Boston?”

“She will only be across town, for Mr. Winship has rented a home closer to New North Meetinghouse. We will have plenty of opportunity to visit with her there.” 

Evidently not wishing to dwell, Mrs. Treat gently turned their exchange back to Miss Coggeshall’s note, and then further to Dryden’s translation. What did an experienced seaman make of Juno’s wild petition to Aeolus? Norrington took the question as he supposed she intended, remarking there would be neither need nor livelihood for skilled sailors if such appeals truly worked.

“Indeed?” Mrs. Treat, endeavoring to look like Patience on the proverbial monument, cocked an eyebrow.

Before he could go on, Governor Belcher coughed and interrupted (having seen, Norrington assumed, that he was willing to converse with Mrs. Treat), starting to speak of the Cape Ann problem in a low, rapid voice. It was, in essence, a repeat of his previous letter. Mrs. Treat smiled blandly and looked politely elsewhere, until the last couple had left the floor, and Norrington returned her to her family.

Nibley, either sensible of his duty or his need to make a good impression upon the people of Boston, immediately appeared to claim a dance with Mrs. Treat; Norrington had not moved quickly enough to join the set close to Nibley and the widow. After the it had ended he scanned the room, finally catching sight of the _Teal_ ‘s acting Captain and Mrs. Treat still at the center of the floor.

“She doesn’t appear to like Nibley, sir,” said Groves quietly, materializing at his side with two glasses of punch, “Here, sir – it’s a Bostonian receipt, but it nearly knocked poor Jarsdel out.”

“What?”

“Mr. Jarsdel’s fine. Mr. Lawless had the presence of mind to call for some barley water and take him outside to wait for the spell to pass, sir. Poor fellow!”

Norrington said he was glad, but the widow was appearing to treat Lieutenant Nibley with the same courtesy she showed everyone. 

“Her hands – she worries at her mourning rings when, ah, upset, sir.”

He looked skeptically at his first lieutenant, but as Nibley had arrived with the widow on his arm, and as it was Groves’s honor to ask her for the next, there was no time for further revelations. Norrington was next with Mrs. Hutchinson, who spoke as lightly as she danced, and left adequate space for him to marshal his thoughts. 

Certainly, Groves was more observant than he – particularly where people, and not ships of war, were concerned. ( _Surely, at some point on the long voyage from Portsmouth, Groves had said something about Nibley?_ He couldn’t recall.) Had he himself seen anything to corroborate? Casting his mind back over his acquaintance with the widow, he tried to remember what she had done in moments of disquiet: that fateful day on Long Wharf most especially. Norrington had seen her twist at her black-enameled rings, but as the widow always seemed to be doing something – turning pages for her cousin at the spinet, bouncing the infant Hutchinson girl on her knee, puzzling out Cato with her son, endlessly stirring her tea, delicate little whitework embroidery that could barely be seen – he hadn’t assigned much meaning to it; where her conduct on the wharf was concerned, Mrs. Treat’s whole aspect had radiated discomfort, so much so that the little actions and postures had hardly been worth adding up. (As well he ought to note that he had not, precisely, been at his most aware in that moment). So there was something to Groves’s observation. Down the rooms, Mrs. Treat was speaking with his first lieutenant and laughing as they changed hands in the set, before saying something aside to Miss Corcellis, which in turn made the younger woman giggle. What had Groves said to her?

He wanted to ask, but Groves had followed Mrs. Treat’s lead to her family, and had the good manners and fortune to ask Miss Coggeshall for the gavotte. After, she took it upon herself to introduce Groves to her circle of friends after, and so Norrington lost track of him. Little worry. Groves could be trusted, while others could not – and only a few weeks ago, morose Lieutenant Tollemache (prone to quoting Milton’s and Marvell’s more lugubrious works at whatever shining-eyed beauty would listen) had been his chief concern! Nibley he watched more closely. A pariah he should have been, but the sons of lords – even natural ones – were apparently as desirable as mace or nutmeg, and he was a tall, witty man besides.

It seemed to be tempting fate, to ask how much more damage the _Teal_ ‘s acting Captain could do, but Norrington couldn’t help it. Phips drew him aside to speak, blessedly as much about the issue of smuggled goods in Boston as the Cape Ann problem, which took nearly a full half of an hour; the next he danced with Mrs. Bendish, who took the measure of his evening with a quick grey-eyed glance, and contented herself with pleasantries. 

“My husband and I are indebted to you, for your gallantry towards our niece,” she said, toward the end, with the last few bars of the dance in sight. 

“Not so much, madam, as I am to Mrs. Treat.”

“Ha – no, I imagine not,” she replied, and more quietly: “She is very capable, my niece, but there are times where that capability becomes a weakness, for one such as her.”

Norrington replied that it would be unforgivably selfish to snub or reproach the widow for her conduct, when the triumph of necessity over propriety had been the saving of him.

“Just so, Commodore, just so; It was a different matter when Captain Treat was alive. Nevertheless, we remain grateful to you, even in this difficult season, and you may rely upon it.”

But that was the last kind word he had on the subject for some time.

* * *

Close to midnight, they sat to supper – down the long table, he could see the midshipmen’s eyes go as wide as their plates, one of two bright spots of this part of the affair, for conversation contained mostly repetition of what had already been said to him; with the help of many toasts to the King, supper itself gave way to the second, livelier bank of dances. 

The second bright spot, though not unshadowed, came later still – after a long conversation with Belcher’s son, deputized to speak in his father’s stead, far enough into the night that there was no sign of morning. 

Norrington was listening to Mr. Hutchinson’s own report from a trusted friend in Ipswich, when across the room, he noticed Mrs. Treat speaking with an ornately-dressed man he only vaguely recognized; the flash of her earrings must have caught his eye. It wasn’t remarkable, save that he saw what Groves had mentioned at the start of the ball, either hours or years ago: the widow was subtly pushing at and twisting her rings, even as she gave the pretense of standing at courteous attention.

A few moments passed, as he reviewed what he knew, and wondered if interruption would be welcome, if that might be some sliver of repayment of his debt to her. Keeping an ear open to Hutchinson’s concerns that the _Teal_ deserters would inevitably come to Boston, he surveyed the room for her friends – Mrs. Bendish was speaking with Mrs. Phips, her husband had disappeared into a politicking knot, and Mrs. Hutchinson was already joining the long forming sets. Only Miss Coggeshall seemed to be at all troubled, but she was already in line with Mr. Winship, and could do nothing.

Summoning Groves to stand in his stead with a pointed look, Norrington apologized to Mr. Hutchinson and crossed the room, vaguely thinking that at least this provided a temporary reprieve from to Cape Ann problem. “Mr. Loring,” he greeted her companion, remembering the man’s name at the last moment, “Mrs. Treat. I apologize if my memory deceived me – was it this dance that I had asked for?” 

Puzzlement – then realization and relief flashed across Mrs. Treat’s face, before the widow resumed her pleasant smile. “Already?” She cocked her head as though giving weighty consideration to the musicians sound their chords, “Yes, yes, you are right. My sincerest apologies, Mr. Loring, the heat of the room has made me careless.”

And, under her breath: “I have no idea how you knew, but thank you for the prescient intervention, Commodore,” said Mrs. Treat, following his lead into the forming set.

He hesitated, thinking of the proper response – he was sure she had not wanted to speak or dance with Mr. Loring, but the hour was advanced, and perhaps she wished to avoid dancing on the whole? “If you are feeling unwell, I shall be happy to return you to your friends,” he tried, speaking under his breath, before adding as a ready excuse, “It is very close, in the set.”

Mrs. Treat shook her head. “No, but I appreciate your concern.”

Well. He’d made the offer, at least. Mrs. Treat slipped off his arm and took her place opposite, nodding to her neighbors before first notes sounded.

As before, she was an easy partner – more than, for with the eyes of the assembly elsewhere and the rooms full of noise, she spoke lightly, even humorously: compliments to his officers’ bearing and conduct, pointing out where – subtly gesturing while taking hands in the center – poor Mr. Jarsdel had secluded himself, how Lieutenant Groves had missed the dance and was now applying himself to his punch while speaking with Mr. Hutchinson. 

He returned the courtesy as best he could. Desultorily batting conversation back and forth, as they progressed through the long-wise lines, Norrington found himself drifting still further – back to Nibley and Cape Ann, of course, but exhaustion had worn down his guard, and there were memories of this particular dance in Port Royal ballrooms past, which were dangerous to think on in so public a space. He ruthlessly cut himself off, in time to catch Mrs. Treat’s expectant, apprehensive look. “I hope the ‘maggot’ of the dance’s title is not so literal as to eat at your thoughts like a worm i’ the bud,” she tried after a pause, at the turn in the center. 

As small a thing as it was, he laughed at it – it was better than admitting what he had been thinking of. Mrs. Treat smiled, though there was still something of concern about her as she passed in front of him, and when they met again on separate sides of the set. “Not the dance,” he replied.

“That is good, for I am _very_ grateful to you for this most recent invitation.”

“After the service you rendered me, it would be ungentlemanly not to.” But this was a repeat of the conversation he’d had with her aunt. What had he been speaking of with Mrs. Treat before, at the end of the minuet? Dryden’s translation?

But the widow spoke before he could, looking over to the knot of midshipmen who had stationed themselves close to the punch. “I had been meaning to ask, and admit my ignorance on naval affairs. Is not Mr. Jarsdel,” she began just before they parted, and moved separately up the set, “Is not Mr. Jarsdel young, for his position of responsibility?”

“Not very. If a man means to sit the examination for lieutenant before he is twenty, and gain the experience and sea-time necessary to pass, he must start as a boy. Thirteen is –” another paused for the figure of the set “– thirteen is a reasonable age.”

“Indeed?”

“There was a case, I know, of a Captain who put his nephew on his ship’s muster roll when the boy was seven – as a midshipman, but he was still home, of course, learning his numbers and lettering. Some will bring their sons, or nephews, or grandsons to sea at that age or a little above, as volunteers, to begin their education early.”

“The first is an ingenious system,” Mrs. Treat said, her raised brows indicating she was not sure of the second. “Were you the nephew in that instance, Commodore?”

“Ha – no, madam. That was a lieutenant I served with, in the West Indies.”

“Was he any the worse for it?”

Norrington thought of the last time he had seen Andrew Gillette – a Portsmouth quayside, on his way to a plum appointment in Clinton’s Mediterranean fleet with a pang. He shook his head, and replied in the negative.

“And what of the second scheme? Is it similarly beneficial to a man’s life in His Majesty’s Navy?”

“Almost all those boys come from families of influence,” he replied, which was more evasion than explanation; the dreams of deep water had brought the fragmented and unpleasant memories of his earliest shipboard days to the surface. Ironic. But how was the widow to have known any of that? It was long ago, and mostly preferable to every other conversation he’d had this a week.

“Is a usual thing?”

“Not unusual. My father took me to sea when I was five.”

“ _Five_?” She was startled enough that she slow to let go of his hand, missing the beat at the end of the turn – and had to dash forward to not derange the whole of the line, “Goodness! All I was trusted with at five was sweeping and wool-picking, and I readily gave up both to chase beetles.”

“There’s filth and insects to be found on even the most rigorously-kept warship, Mrs. Treat; I didn’t miss that part of my youth.”

He said it dryly enough, as much to convince himself as the widow, and though she accused him of exaggerating for effect, Mrs. Treat laughed – more than politeness dictated – saying with from her curtsey, at the end, “And here we have arrived back where we started, Commodore. Beetles and worms and all manner of creeping things that crawl upon the earth.”

“That was not the beginning,” Norrington protested, thinking the dance had been half-done by time she’d quoted Viola’s speech.

“Alas, sir. In New England, some insects may have gaily-colored carapaces, but less than six limbs.” Mrs. Treat blanched after she said it, smothering her hard look beneath a placid smile, and quickly added, “But I am very grateful to you for your intervention, though I fear I will have to hear what Mr. Loring wishes to say to me at some point or another. As one half-drowned to another – thank you."

* * *

At the end of the night, with the doors thrown open to the humid, noisy air, and the tapers burning down to almost nothing, the Boston colonists departed to their homes – the highest in their carriages and chaises and chairs; some opting to walk by torchlight through the muddy city streets. Mrs. Treat and her sister were of the latter, donning pattens and short cloaks while Midshipman Jarsdel – looking to Norrington for permission – offered to escort them with one of the Garlands to bear the light.

“Goodnight, Commodore,” said Miss Coggeshall drowsily, as Mrs. Treat tucked her against her shoulder.

“Yes, goodnight, Commodore Norrington – and thank you, once more, for your kind notice and invitation,” the widow added, before turning to Mr. Jarsdel and Waite, the torch-bearing _Garland_ man. “And thank you, sirs, for your escort, we’re for Summer Street. Come along, dearest, can’t have you catching your death.”

The party – one of the last – was off, and gradually, their light receded into the gloom.

Unobserved for the moment, James Norrington pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, cataloguing his physical discomforts: his prickling scalp, his fine cambric shirt long since stuck to his back, the pinching fit of his best shoes. Irritating, but could be changed. The rumbling unrest on Cape Ann, the loss of trust among his few allies in Boston, Nibley himself – those _discomforts_ could not be so easily addressed. Weariness gave one’s problems a speaking trumpet, an admired officer had told him once, decades ago, and he felt it in the marrow of his bones. At least he had held his head up, tonight – listened to the genuine (and embellished) complaints of the wronged, and pledged to investigate and make proper restitution.

As if summoned by his frustration, Groves came to stand by his elbow, pretending to examine the stars until he grew irritated enough with the silence to speak. “Just like old times in the Windward Passage, sir. Even the heat of the night feels similar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I jokingly said that the chapter notes could be summarized as 'THIS IS BAD DANCE HISTORY AND WORMS ARE NOT INSECTS' & yet it is still largely correct! Do not take this cobbled-together-from-various-sources-primary-and-secondary ball program as representative of the late 1730s, for it owes far more to mid-to-late 18th century and early 19th century sources and ball descriptions! Baroque dance norms? What are they!? (I will say, in my defense, the second dance that Norrington asks Mrs. Treat for - "Mr. Beveridge's Maggot" - apparently first appeared in a 1695/6 edition of Playford's _The English Dancing Master_ , and the accepted tune is from 1701. That totally could have happened.)
> 
> Also, I was yesterday years old when I learned the first use of insect was c. 1600, but entomology as a word to refer to a field of study dates to the 1760s. Here, now you know, too.
> 
> Norrington's backstory - being brought to sea at age five & being saved from drowning by Jack Sparrow's father - is pretty much entirely lifted from the prequel novels, particularly Rob Kidd's _Sins of the Father_. Credit where credit is due. Andrew Gillette's backstory is based on Thomas Cochrane, whose Uncle Alexander Cochrane started keeping his nephew on his ships' muster starting when Thomas was five years old - before properly joining as a midshipman at the age of seventeen and going onto his frankly absurd career. Read his wiki page, or read the Aubrey-Maturin or Hornblower novels - it's pretty much the same thing! Anyway. Nepotism, eh?
> 
> (It should be noted that while there were absolutely young midshipmen running around, they were not necessarily the youngest members of a ship's crew; powder-boys/powder-monkeys, almost entirely drawn from the working class as opposed to the largely professional/gentry sons who became officers, were supposed to be somewhere around twelve to start, but as far as I can tell they could be younger. Childhood's ... a bit of a moving target.)
> 
> Speaking of the Royal Navy, could that be the distant rumblings of plot in the distance? Two of the constants of life in the 18th century British Royal Navy (and other European navies, I assume, but I don't know enough to say) were crew desertion and deaths from disease - though, since crew pay was a constant sum not adjusted for inflation and changing conditions until the "Great Mutinies of 1797", naval service might have been a little more desirable in the beginning of the century. Certainly, merchant vessels tended to pay better; in times of war, too, naval pay could be over a year in arrears. And of course, there's the matter of harsh discipline and the shadow of impressment. Nibley is in a **very** dangerous position - claiming two men to be deserters certainly violates what the Massachusetts colonists understand to lawful conduct, as well as their understanding of their obligations to national defense. But more on that score as it becomes relevant! 
> 
> Real People Watch: Belcher, the Phipses, and the Hutchinsons as mentioned before; Reverend Rogers of Ipswich & Reverend Bradstreet of Annisquam, Governor Belcher's son Andrew Belcher (married, funnily enough, to an Elizabeth Teale) - and, off screen, Commodore the Hon. George Clinton of the Mediterranean Squadron (father of General Sir Henry Clinton, of American Revolution "fame")
> 
> The less said about Cape Ann and my complete lack of geographical and historical understanding (original drafts of this chapter contained a lot of references to English towns that didn't exist yet) - suffice to say it is a cape north of Boston with a somewhat confused history of English claims to the land, which properly belonged/s to the Pawucket/Pennacook, who - as far as I can tell - maintained their homes and claims until English violence and aggression in King Philip's War killed, enslaved, or forced many to flee by 1676 - some to inland to the "praying towns", others to areas still controlled by the Pennacook. Still in the living memory of some of the oldest characters in the background, but nothing that the main cast personally remembers.
> 
> a chapter without someone quoting Cato or Virgil? _mirabile visu_.


	8. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nellie goes to Aunt B to discuss the events of the officers' ball, but finds unwelcome news regarding imperial policy, Lieutenant Nibley, and the Commodore himself.

Nellie intended to sleep indecently late the next day, but despite Susannah’s best efforts Sam and Polly came roaring into her bedchamber before their breakfast, demanding an account of the ball, the arbitration of a dispute over the ownership of a new book from Captain Hendricks ( _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates_ , Captain Charles Johnson, she sleepily read), praise for their multiplication tables and memorization of Psalms and embroidery and all manner of things – and, with such a wake-up call, who could return to their dreams? Begging a moment to wash and dress herself, Nellie pushed herself out of bed to kiss her children, and resigned herself to exhaustion and the business of the day.

There were the lessons, of course, and her correspondence – and the latest figures from her warehouse and captains regarding the sale of goods, which she had to work through twice on scrap paper before she could copy into her ledgers. She waved away her breakfast with inky fingers. Polly, who she’d set to un-picking a particularly shapeless rose in her embroidery work, watched her mother scribble through her sleep-addled mistakes with badly-concealed amusement; Sam ceremoniously put Captain Johnson’s book aside and went to her desk and fetched a penknife, as though that were the true source of her problems. Mary, who’d risen close to noon, and divided her time between yawning into a dish of tea and the half-quilted petticoat pooled in her lap, watched these proceedings with an indulgent smile – eventually taking pity on her sister, and summoned Polly over to her side to inspect her progress. 

Things went on in this vein for some time. By and by, the frank light of a summer morning faded into something altogether weaker, promising another afternoon storm.

She grimaced. Nellie’d intended to go out and speak with Aunt B – an after-action report, one might call it: there was the judgment on how successful her first ball in over a year and a half had gone, but there was the more pressing matter of the hornets’ nest the fleet had kicked in Cape Ann – and what that meant for the Commodore’s attention and activities. The one had fairly overshadowed the other – no one wanted to speak to prettily-dressed Widow Treat about such things, not when the prize was her late husband’s estate and business, not when they could flatter her instead.

And it wasn’t as though Commodore Norrington, or any of his subordinates, had been likely to speak to her of these things, either.

Polly and Sam frowned as they watched her draw on her mitts, and pin down her straw hat, able to look out the window and do the same math as their mother.

“Will you be home before the rain?” asked Sam.

“Of course,” she replied, kissing their foreheads, “Mind your tables and your Aunt Mary. It won’t be long.”

* * *

Ushered into the parlor, Nellie found Aunt B drinking chocolate in her banyan, looking like a queen of some far-off place.

“You slept well,” she observed, sitting wearily on her Aunt’s best-upholstered chair.

“And you, not at all,” Aunt B replied, before going to speak with Mercy about tea. Nellie took advantage of the moment to scrub the heels of her hands against her face, as though she could scour the drowsiness away by force of will alone. Alas. If the bitterest dish of coffee she’d ever asked Susannah to brew couldn’t make a dent in her fatigue, well. Night would fall eventually, wouldn’t it? And eventually, Sam and Polly would be of an age that they would rather stay abed than rattle through the house, though the thought was not a wholly welcome one.

Aunt B returned, and spoke mildly about the weather for a few minutes, before Mercy could bring in hot water and the tea service, and then she set about that with a quiet vengeance. Nellie let the steam of her dish wash across her face.

“A successful evening,” said Aunt B, after a few moments had passed.

Nellie replied that she hoped it was so, a little more unsure than she wanted.

“Mm. Your minuet was particularly admired.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Lloyd will be pleased to hear I have not disgraced her tutelage.”

“I heard Mrs. Graham reply that one would not guess you had been unsociable in your mourning this last year and more,” said Aunt B, with an expression that might have been called ‘pinched’, if Nellie were to wear it. But Aunt B was far too dignified for that. “Which I think might be the worst of it. We are not our severe ancestors; to dance well is not an indictment.” 

“I have never had her good opinion, and I do no business with her family. This is no great loss to me.”

Aunt B hummed her agreement, before turning her attention to her tea, and urging Nellie to do the same – but while she stared at the whirlpool she’d created in her dish, she found herself drifting: the turn of partners matching the swirling Bohea; the almost-friendly way the Commodore had asked after her sister’s marriage. She’d been distracted then, too. There was Mary, in her finest green silk, glittering like a precious stone in sunlight – and yet, all she could see was her sister as she had been, those thirteen years ago: thin as a reed and lighter than a sparrow, perched on Nellie’s lap as they were rowed out to meet Captain Treat’s _Sally_ , riding at anchor in Newport harbor. The gentle swell of Narragansett Bay gave way to a violent Atlantic chop; the only life they’d ever known disappearing – first behind Brenton Neck, and then in the haze of distance. Nellie’d gotten sea-sick immediately, and Mary wanted to go home. How had Nellie stood it, then? A little better than eighteen, married in her dead mother’s old-fashioned mantua (itself remade from something older), wed to a man she had known for two months. If S– 

If Captain Treat, even at twenty-two, had not been certainty embodied, more sure to last than rocks and tides and stars – could she have withstood it? This was an older, darker path, leading deeper into her memories than she generally cared to follow: her spendthrift father and overwhelmed step-mother, the drafty house too cramped for nine children – and when her father had driven John out, how _cruel_ that the loss of her brother and closest friend in the world came as nothing but a relief to the rest? Not even the sudden interest of her Aunt and Uncle Coggeshall could make up for it. When Captain Treat had walked into her Uncle’s parlor as she was balancing the business’s books and he decided he liked the look of her – she made up her mind then and there: even if the tall, laughing Boston captain proved to be the worst man in Christendom, wherever he was bound, she would go with him – Heaven, Hell, or Massachusetts.

Luck was with her, then. If she’d withstood too-early motherhood – the brutal moment when her own stepmother had seized her wrist and begged her to take any of the younger ones with her, transforming Mary from ‘sister’ to something closer to ‘daughter’ – it was because Captain Treat had been a willing father. A partner. Any part of the pride in seeing Mary so widely admired and loved always came, this last year and more, with the hollow feeling that _he_ should have been there to see it.

 _Enough of that_. Nellie shook herself out of her reverie, and when prompted by her Aunt, responded almost truthfully: that she had been thinking that the Commodore had complimented Mary’s dancing when it was her turn at the minuet. Aunt B smiled. It was difficult for a woman to be too much admired, after all, and any evidence that Commodore Norrington thought highly of the family was a welcome development. And Mary was as good as married – she was in no danger from the unwed Commodore there.

“On that score, my dear, how are matters progressing?” 

“Well enough. The date is set, Reverend Prince has been consulted, and I’ve met with Mr. Bishop to discuss her dowry some six times at least.”

“And the difficulty with your brother Peter?”

“Resolved,” she replied, with a tight smile and a silent oath of condemnation, “I made up the deficit. The Winships are satisfied with what I and I alone have settled on Mary, and that is the best closure for the affair I can think of.”

Aunt B nodded, murmuring a few soothing words of approval in the face of her niece’s temper, but Nellie was not so easily placated – not after Peter had been so irresponsible, and not when her righteous anger at her worthless half-brother was much more pleasant to dwell on than memories of her late husband, or the girl she’d been before him.

“And after all this, he will still attend the wedding,” she fumed, before stuffing a bite of buttered bread in her mouth.

“He is Mary’s brother.”

“Oh, sure, sure. No one but family could feel so entitled to money that isn’t theirs.”

Aunt B set aside her dish with a polite clearing of her throat, and once more put down the conversational tiller:

“On the subject of your sister: Mary informed me that the Commodore – hm – intervened, between you and Mr. Loring,” she said, delicately, taking a purposeful sip of her still-steaming tea.

“He did,” Nellie agreed, before pausing to collect her thoughts. She had been so grateful for an escape from the one man that she was more than halfway through a dance with the other, before she thought – _How!?_ It was unsettling. Either the Commodore had preternatural timing, or he had known, _somehow_ , that she couldn’t stand Loring – feared him, even – but was not exactly in a position to say so. If she was transparent as glass to the Commodore … 

_Well_. That would be an inglorious end to her independent career as a smuggler.

“Did you mention anything regarding Mr. Loring to Commodore Norrington?” 

“There’s no reason I should have,” Aunt B replied, “But Mr. Loring has been caught with French sugar since the squadron’s arrival. Perhaps his temper left an impression.”

“How gallant of the Commodore,” she said, sourly. But she was being mulish and ungrateful and she knew it, and nodded like a chastened child when her Aunt reminded her that it was better for her to be in Norrington’s debt than in his black books. And Nellie had been grateful – grateful _enough_ , worn down _enough_ by dancing and the hour and the punch – that she’d said it, and because of that gratitude, had felt a twinge when the man’s look turned distant and haunted in the middle of the set. She recalled the quick path her thoughts had taken – had he turned down another, more welcome dance partner, only to come to her aid? Perhaps, but if Commodore Norrington was courting anyone in Boston, surely the whole city would have known it. He hadn’t been looking at anyone specific – _ah_. It was the dance itself, Nellie had guessed – and if there was nothing much in the present to trouble him, then the answer lay in the past: the man’s broken engagement? 

(This was as much informed by the awful hole in her gut that appeared whenever she heard a man whistling ‘The Nut-Brown Maid,’ even without the particular glee Captain Treat had always mustered for “I am the knight, I came by night” as any other factor or reasonable assumption; it was hard to get out of the habit of looking for someone who had gone away from you.) 

“I know you have little reason to like Commodore Norrington, fortunate intervention or no,” Aunt B said, after Nellie had dwelled on her words for a few moments, “Though in some respects, he may be a hazard preferable to that of the Hugh Lorings of this world.” 

“A temporary, and not a permanent one? Or that no one has yet accused him of beating servants or his sister?” 

Indeed. He seems too conscientious, for the latter, in any case.” 

_Did he even have a sister?_ Nellie recalled that Aunt B had said he was a younger son, and vaguely agreed with her Aunt’s assertion – before pivoting to the news that was everywhere in Boston, and what really had been the purpose of this visit: “Conscientious enough for what his junior’s done in Cape Ann?” 

Aunt B’s brows knit together, and she let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a hiss, setting aside her dish of tea to rub her temples. “If I never hear of Ipswich again, my dear, it would be too soon.” 

Nellie encouraged her to continue, having not heard much of the news at the officers’ ball. 

“It is apparently all the Acting Captain, Lieutenant Nibley’s doing. His _Teal_ had suffered greatly from desertions and he consequently went to great lengths in order to recapture those sailors – or not, as he seized at least two men who were not enlisted in the _Teal_ ’s books, and claimed they were, despite all proofs to the contrary.” 

“The usual inducements to enlist had no effect?” 

“Lieutenant Nibley appears not to have made any serious efforts to recruit new crew members to fill deficiencies in the muster books.” 

“What?” 

Aunt B smiled a thin, sour smile. “Just so. He preferred to catch the deserters.” 

“And failing that, he wanted to –” Nellie filled in, before trailing off herself, thinking quickly of what she knew – there had been similar cases, she was sure, though her memory barely extended to the last major war, Bourbons and Hapsburgs and eventually Britain, too. There had been some – well, Aunt would call it _uneasiness_ , though _riots_ (entirely justified, she thought) might have been closer to the case, over the impressment of British sailors in colonial ports. Boston, particularly; she knew little of other ports save Newport, and her long-ago home been spared. 

“It is unlawful, at least by one interpretation of the Trade to America Act. But, of course, Lieutenant Nibley does not call his actions ‘impressment’ – that happy office,” she said, with a sour twist of her features, “fell to the _Gazette_.” 

“Oh,” said Nellie. _There_ was that familiar hole in her gut. 

“Indeed. I have heard that Governor Belcher lost his considerable temper over Mr. Green’s editorializing. The damage, however …” 

“Has been done?” 

And, Nellie imagined, the lengths to which Commodore Norrington and Lieutenant Nibley had gone to enforce duties had surely prevented anyone from extending them any grace or period in which to explain themselves. 

“I think it has. How did you find the streets today?” 

“As they normally are, outside of Sunday. Should I have noticed something?” 

“There was, from some reports, an effigy of Lieutenant Nibley hanged from a tree in Ipswich, before some sensible soul cut it down – one can only imagine what would have occurred, had it been Nibley left to the task. Nehemiah Parsons, one of the men he seized, was evidently a popular man.” 

Aunt B was not looking at her, but had taken her dish of tea into her lap, if only to have something to do with her hands. Nellie paused, suddenly very aware of how still and oppressive the afternoon had grown, and how dark – _how nice of the weather to provide such an appropriate backdrop to the drama playing out here and in Cape Ann_ , she thought – and then balked, a little surprised at her own irreverence. “And has this Mr. Parsons been returned to his friends?” 

“He has, along with the others. Commodore Norrington’s orders must have been _very_ strongly worded, if the haste with which the men were sent back ashore, and with which the _Teal_ left her station are anything to go by.” 

“And what will he do now?” 

“The Commodore? He cannot let the Lieutenant’s actions stand, either from his own convictions, or for the sake of public order.” Aunt B looked up from her restless stirring, and dropped her voice to little more than a murmur. “But then, well. Lieutenant Nibley, our relations in England have written, is the child of an affair, and his natural father has a great deal of power at the Admiralty. And conversely, Commodore Norrington may have the Byngs on his side, but it has been full six years since Admiral Byng, the Viscount Torrington passed. Wager, the current First Lord, will likely be unwilling to alienate any possible allies with war so close at hand – and there are none of the Viscount’s family among his Council.” 

Nellie frowned, and took a sip of her cold tea: _between the Devil and the deep blue sea_ suggested itself to her, though any sympathy for Norrington came unavoidably twisted with a hard thought: as much as Nibley could distract him from the smugglers of Boston, that would be to her benefit – a contemptible thing to think, when it was her countrymen who were suffering by Nibley’s high-handed actions. 

Aunt B seemed to take the measure of her thoughts in a glance, for she pinned Nellie with a sharp look. “I know any distraction on the Commodore’s part is of benefit to the harbor’s illicit business, but allow me to observe that of the two men, only one is proposing to interpret the law to flatter his pride.” 

“And the other, I suppose, is Commodore Norrington.” 

“Just so, my dear. Just so.” 

Nellie set her dish and rubbed her temples, not trusting herself to make a reasoned response: between the exhaustion and the strange circumstance of feeling at once indebted to and nearly sorry for the grim Commodore, she could feel the start of a splitting headache. The amassing storm, too – that never helped. 

Pleading that headache, and that she had promised Polly and Sam to return before the rain, Nellie came to her feet, and made to wish her aunt a good afternoon – and, to her surprise, Aunt B dismissed Mercy to the kitchen, saying she would see her niece out herself. 

In the hall, Aunt B put her hand to the door as she opened it, and gave her a last, thin smile. “A word, before you go. We dine with the Phipses and Hutchinsons tonight, and while your uncle has high hopes that they will support the Commodore in this matter, Mr. Hutchinson’s demeanor at the officers’ ball does give me pause. No one has ever accused him of being a friend of the laboring classes, but it seems the vehemence of the reaction in Cape Ann has troubled him – as have whatever rumblings exist, in Boston.” 

This Nellie granted, impatiently checking her kerchief and cap-ribbons. 

“If matters are not satisfactorily concluded tonight, I will ask you to speak with Margaret Hutchinson, and ask her to advise her husband to publically support Commodore Norrington, if only in the matter of the unjustly-seized men. Lean on your family connection – appeal to her as a fellow Sanford – however distantly so,” Aunt B, paused, and then smiled like a fox. “If her late grandfather could have found it within himself to work with Andros in the bad old days, surely supporting a loyal servant of a rightful monarch is not beyond the scope of the possible.” 

Nellie frowned, but promised to do so. 

“Good. God be with you, my dear.” 

Aunt Bendish embraced her quickly, and disappeared into the parlor. 

And this was, of course, when Nellie swung the door fully open, discovering Commodore Norrington walking up the door yard. 

_Hellfire_. 

The blue-coated officer looked up when she hailed him, surprised for a moment, before returning her greeting with his usual courtesy. In the grey light of day, far less forgiving than the candle-lit long rooms, he looked half-dead: oddly pale for a sailor at the best of times, Commodore Norrington was completely ashen-faced. Nellie felt a pang – _almost_ – that she had been complaining of the few hours of dreaming she'd managed when the man before him had clearly not slept at all. This was all because of Lieutenant Nibley's conduct, she assumed. 

"You are here for my Uncle," she said. 

"I am. He is at home?" 

Nellie replied she had been with her Aunt, but presumed her Uncle to be in his office, which the Commodore acknowledged with all the enthusiasm of a man about to face the scaffold, and made to knock and announce himself. 

"My Aunt is speaking with the servants about evening arrangements, I think," Nellie said, glancing at the sky, "So there'll be no one for the door. I can show you in, if you like? It's not a day for waiting out of doors." 

He assented and thanked her, and Nellie retraced her steps into the cool shadows of the house, rapping on the office door and poking her head in when addressed. "Commodore Norrington to see you, Uncle." 

Uncle Bendish nodded, Norrington went in, and Nellie rushed out the front door for home – 

Only to be turned back halfway down the street, when the skies opened with a mighty crack of lightning, as though they were in some rehearsal for a second Deluge. 

* * *

_This_ , thought Nellie Treat, shaking out her petticoats in the Bendish hall, _was all of a piece_. 

She said as much when she stalked to the kitchen to tell her Aunt she intended to wait out the worst of the storm, and allowed herself to be pushed before the fire to dry out, while Aunt B excused herself and took Mercy with her, saying she needed to dress for the evening, and that Nellie ought not to leave without saying farewell, should the storm let up soon. There was another roll of thunder, by means of punctuation. Aunt B patted her hand, said that Sam would understand, and sailed along on her way. 

Nellie plucked at her damp, clammy kerchief unhappily, and listened to the noise of the storm, hoping that it would be of short duration. 

Her prayers went unheeded. Uncle Bendish, not ten minutes later, swung open the door, and asked Kitty if she’d have Mrs. Bendish serve tea, before ducking back into the office without even seeing Nellie; the maid abandoned her potatoes to rush up the kitchen stairs. 

“Mrs. Bendish is at her dressing table, Mrs. Treat,” the young woman reported, coming down the stairs in a clatter, not a handful of minutes later, dropping a quick curtsey at the bottom “And asks that you perform the office." 

Nellie supposed that her Aunt’s request was really more of a command – and Kitty seemed to have interpreted it as such, as well, for she went about setting the kettle above the fire and unlocking the tea-chest, and the dozen other little preparations. 

This seemed a little like something Aunt B might have planned, had she the ability to command thunderous storms; _but_ , Nellie reflected, _all she needed was a familiarity with Boston’s pattern of summer storms to play the odds of probability_. Nothing for it; she was stuck here, now, however wet and unhappy, and might as well hear what Aunt B wished her to. 

While she waited, Nellie pressed Kitty for some cake or bread or something to send in with the tea itself – she wholly misliked how haggard the Commodore had looked on his way in, and, she supposed, she was feeling a little charitable. She could afford to, under the circumstances. 

The kettle came to a boil, Kitty assembled the rest of the service, and thus she took the whole tray into the office. 

The gentlemen rose to their feet. “Ah. Elinor. I thought you had left us, for the day. Is Imogene – ?” 

“Occupied, at present,” said Nellie. A lie, but certainly better than saying her aunt was at her dressing table. “The rain caught me as I was leaving; Aunt sent me in her stead.” 

This answer satisfied Uncle Bendish, though Norrington still looked at her a little warily, and hesitated to speak before prompted by his host: a letter from his sister, whose news came from her husband in the House of Commons, and who had been present when Captain Jenkins laid his grievances against the Spanish Guarde Costa ( _Tho’_ , he read from his sister’s missive, with something Nellie might have called amusement, _the Reports of Jenkins giving his pickled ear to Walpole are a Scandalous Exaggeration_.) 

Nellie kept her curiosity to herself and worked quietly: a rinse of the pot before steeping the leaves, the same of the dishes, laying out the molasses cake and plates for the two. At the same time, she pieced together what she’d heard at the door, and the vague hint Aunt B had given her. _Not Nibley_ – no, this had something to do with the last letters from London, if the Commodore’s news was anything to go by. She’d heard Uncle Bendish speak before of Walpole’s troubles, the pressure on him to go to war with Spain and the insurgency of the Patriot Whigs – much of which she’d made a note of but largely had little use for; the King and Parliament had done little meddling in Boston affairs within her memory. 

This was different – Norrington was talking as though war with Spain was a certainty, not an abstract possibility, which neither pleased nor shocked her: just one more piece of information to use and circulate. It was Uncle Bendish’s remarks, derived from the handsomely-written letter on the table, that struck home. 

“It’s not only the usual reasons. There are the typical willful misunderstandings between merchants in the Indies – and then there’s the South Sea Company and the Royal African Company, of course, and their compulsion to needle Madrid over the asiento.” 

Commodore Norrington’s expression markedly soured, if only for a moment. 

“The cost, of course, is a major concern,” her uncle went on, with a glance at Nellie, who was sitting with eyes downcast, waiting for the steeping to be done, “And it is difficult, we might say, to forget what occurred after the last conflict over the Spanish throne, and what was done to pay off the Crown’s debts. No rational man wants a repeat of the South Sea Company's bubble. My cousin writes that he has heard, hmm. Considerations, of what might be done in the Caribbean to protect revenues, and close down the less-legal avenues of trade with foreign ports, and administer the Molasses Act. With force, if necessary.” 

“Much as the Crown has been interested in Boston revenues?” 

“Indeed.” 

Nellie’s blood _froze_. 

Hastily and silently, she thanked the Higher Power that her hands had been folded in her lap as she waited, lest she have dropped the teapot or knocked it over – and how would that look? Nellie darted a glance through her lowered lashes at the two men – Commodore Norrington, contrary to usual his immaculate posture, was tapping the table in thought, but Uncle Bendish had noticed and minutely shook his head. _A warning? An apology?_ She refolded her hands in her lap under the table, pushing at her rings, and tried to think of nothing but counting down the time that was left in the steeping, though her worries wedged their way between the numbers. 

The conversation continued, but it might have been a thousand miles away, for all she paid attention to it – she heard the words, but she might well have been listening to Mr. Corcellis arguing with his father in French for all she understood. 

“There’s some talk that the East India Company is involving itself in West Indian matters, and that the push for enforcement has come from their director – though I can’t see to what end. Your father had some dealings with the East India Company, did he not?” 

“He did." 

“They’ve been anxious about piracy since Avery took the Mughal emperor’s treasure ship, those decades ago,” Uncle Bendish suggested, by means of explaining – something. 

“The Company worked closely with His Majesty’s Navy even into the Admiral’s time, I recall.” 

“Yes. Something about a Captain Tick? Teed?” 

“Teague.” 

“Perhaps this is a return to form, then…” And so on. 

She finished her counting, and poured out two cups. All the sugar that could dissolve for her Uncle – Nellie thought a moment, knowing she’d just had it, if she could _only_ get what had been said out of her mind – _right_ , heavy hand with the cream, little sugar for Norrington. The men barely broke from their discussion of the past conduct of the East India Company to thank her. 

Her office performed, Nellie excused herself with a painstaking curtsey, feeling loose and out of her own control, like a puppet whose strings had been yanked too roughly ( _if puppets had a mind for these things_ , which, one assumed, _they didn’t_ ) – and walked stiffly to the kitchen where she found Aunt B, dressed and pomaded, ordering and organizing for the evening. Nellie seized her aunt’s arm, half for attention, and half because she really did feel like she might drop then and there. “ _It’s not just Boston?_ ” 

Aunt B’s brows knitted with concern: that Nellie was going to have a spell in her kitchen, that Mercy could overhear Nellie’s hissed words, and that if there were a lull in the conversation, Uncle Bendish and Commodore Norrington could, as well. 

“Come along to the parlor, my dear. You ought to sit.” 

“It’s not just Boston,” Nellie repeated, unable to keep a thin, high edge out of her voice. 

“Yes.” 

“The whole of the Caribbean. War with Spain. I’ll – I’m –” 

“Sit down, dear,” Aunt B insisted, pulling a chair up to the empty parlor hearth and telling her to wait – returning in a few moments with a blanket, and Kitty with a little glass of spirits, and a basket of wood to lay the fire. 

“It must have been the rain, my dear,” she said, soothingly, taking the glass and pressing it into Nellie’s hand, “The sudden wind and damp, on top of such a long evening and so little rest – it’s little wonder you became overwhelmed. Indeed, I am only surprised it did not overtake you sooner.” 

This was mostly for Kitty’s benefit, and the young maid did gave her a pitying look, which was all well and good for her to do – at that age, Nellie felt she could have weathered anything. _Youth_. Nellie shook off her irritation at Aunt B’s overly-solicitous excuses. “I don’t mean to make a nuisance of myself. I have not heard thunder in some time, and the rain appears to be letting up. Please, just a moment, and let me be on my way – I promised Sam I’d be home before the storm broke and –” 

“And it has already arrived. You may as well wait.” 

_To Hell with that_. Nellie downed the little glass with ill grace and came to her feet, thinking how much Sam hated thunder, yes – but of the coming regulation of Caribbean trade and the war, and how badly she needed to warn Hendricks – warn all her captains, really, make allowances, make plans. Maybe Hendricks had had the right of it – shipping train oil and whalebone to London, or perhaps the same leg in tobacco – but until that day – 

Aunt B pushed her back into the seat. Gently, of course, but the insistence was there, and it really hadn’t taken much effort, not much, not at all. Her thoughts were skittering, she vaguely noted. 

“Please, my dear. Sit. Rest. You’re as pale as the grave.” 

Unwillingly, she did. 

* * *

Nellie woke neither suddenly nor slowly, hardly aware that she had fallen asleep – noting at once the unfamiliar footfalls and the shut of the officer door, the staccato tap of her Aunt descending the hall stairs, the humid quiet that had followed the thunderstorm. 

“Oh, Commodore,” came Aunt B’s voice, low and measured, “I am sorry to ask you this, as I understand it to be out of your way, but will you escort my niece back to Summer Street? She’s taken ill.” She continued to her excuses: The Hutchinsons, as well as Lieutenant Governor Phips and his lady, were expected at any moment to speak of the unrest in Cape Ann, otherwise either she or her husband should be happy to undertake the office. 

Nellie heard his agreement. Of course. He valued courtesy as he did his allies; why wouldn’t he consent to an errand that would take little of his time? She huffed and came wobbling to her feet, in time for Aunt B to bustle in and wrap her in a wool shawl too heavy for August, promising to visit in the morning. 

Commodore Norrington waited in the hall with an appropriate look of concern. Sluggish as her thoughts were, they all spelled anger and resentment, the sick worry from her uncle’s news flooding back in: was it not enough he was here, leading London’s campaign against smuggling with all the implacability that he’d apparently demonstrated against pirates in the Caribbean? Did Parliament have to begin to interfere more strenuously with illicit trade in the West Indies at the same point in time? And the war with Spain that was coming, that Walpole couldn’t or wouldn’t hold off any longer – that would shut off near a full third of ports to colonial trade! She wanted to curse at all of it, and all of them! But then – Parliament was many hundreds of miles away, and all cursing at Norrington would buy her was a featherweight of satisfaction and several stone of troubles. 

Nellie smothered a sigh. Mechanically taking the officer’s arm, she allowed herself to be ushered out into the afternoon. 

They proceeded in silence for some time – and, absent of other focus, Nellie found herself looking about the city for evidence of any uneasiness, as Aunt B had hinted. That nothing suggested itself did not put her mind at ease, only allowing space for the two portentous conversations to chase each other around her mind: Nibley’s autocratic conduct forcing unrest on the one hand – on the other, forceful imposition of order in the Caribbean. Neither was good news; both personally galled her, and promised yet more difficulties for trade. It was her own little version of _the Devil and the deep blue sea_ , entirely devoid of Commodore Norrington’s tale of titles and lost status with the Admiralty: only the law, its capricious enforcement, and the unpredictable path to walk towards her survival between. 

Nellie glanced up at her escort, though Norrington seemed equally as lost in thought as she was, and consequently did not notice. Where it was between him and Nibley, she supposed she’d rather him – smuggling was one thing, but human lives were another; interrelated at times, but in this instance the lines of conduct were pretty clearly drawn. Nibley was playing the despot; Norrington, at least, adhered to the law. 

Which, to the root of her problems, she deplored. 

_What a day_ , she thought – and because she truly was starting to feel she’d reached the end of her rope, recklessly wondered what else could possibly happen. 

(Later – when she watched Norrington disappear down Summer Street from her parlor window – she would mentally upbraid herself for tempting fate like _that_.) 

At last, he spoke, providing them both with an excuse for their unsociability: “It was a late evening.” 

“It was,” she replied, and then, because she was trying not to think about his conversation with Uncle Bendish, lest she give herself away, rallied to a smile. “But a pleasant one.” 

She very nearly went on to say she had not had such an evening of dancing in some time, but Nellie could see explaining that sentiment would bring up her period of mourning, so she shunned it. Instead, she tried a compliment, or, at the very least, gratitude: “At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I do thank you again for the signal honor you paid me, and for ‘Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot’. You were a far more agreeable partner than – than – ” 

Oh, _hellfire_ , there was no salvaging that: either she had to say she disliked Mr. Loring (instead of implying it), or that she hadn’t expected much from Norrington as a dance partner. Nellie winced, and miserably pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand – both unavoidably noticeable at such close quarters. 

“You looked ready to flee; I only felt obliged to offer you an avenue of retreat.” 

Nellie darted another look up at Norrington, who was gazing down the street, and whose expression gave nothing away. She blurted a smart remark before she could bite it off: “Military strategy even in at a ball, Commodore?” 

“The habit of a lifetime, Mrs. Treat.” 

“I suppose the two lines do suggest battle-order, and, perhaps, ball-dress might be said to resemble signals and pennants. But in that, I must defer to your superior experience. Is it appropriate?” 

“The comparison has its points, but I find it imperfect.” 

Nellie, nearly enjoying the turn the conversation had taken, asked what about it was incorrect. 

“It presumes the party opposite must be your adversary, chiefly.” 

She hadn’t expected _that_. 

“Yes – ah – if I were to believe that to be universally true, it would be a jaundiced view of the world,” she replied, lightly as she could, more flippant than she felt, surely. Commodore Norrington saw her as an _ally_? The thought was discomfiting – one she fairly tripped over – though, with a sinking feeling in her gut, she could clearly see how he arrived at that conclusion. She had been a relation of John and Imogene Bendish, a willing commenter on the economic background of Massachusetts’ political divisions, a courteous conversationalist; she had saved his life at the hazard of her own. There had been the matter of the _Pequot_ ’s illicit cargo, but no matter: she had kept her head down and paid the fine, and neither she nor Captain Sargent had made any serious protests. On the balance of _appearances_ – yes, certainly: polite, capable Mrs. Treat could be counted upon to support the King’s order in his colonies. 

_What a letter to John this would all make_. 

She _knew_ it was for the best, but the realization tasted bitter – frankly puzzling, Nellie thought, that though her livelihood depended in no small way on dishonestly, she should find it unpleasant here. She balled the realization up, to examine later - or never, if the Heavens were kind. 

And, as if he could tell the tack her thoughts had taken, Commodore Norrington broke from the superficial conversation. “I have not personally expressed my gratitude for your conduct, either on Long Wharf, or in company the past several weeks.” 

“The honor of the ball was enough, sir; you owe me no further thanks.” 

He protested that a man’s life was worth more than a dance – _Two_ , she swiftly corrected, a little wryly – and that, at any road, he also considered her conduct in (he said, indirectly and judiciously) the most recent difficulty. 

“You overheard.” 

“I hadn’t intended to, and I only raise the matter to thank you.” 

“I would have you save your thanks until I have something to show for it,” she said, too quickly, as the feeling she’d had in Uncle Bendish’s office – of being a puppet whose strings had been carelessly yanked – returned. “The Bendishes might persuade him, or I might fail. Thomas Hutchinson and my late husband did not agree on much, and my family connection with Mrs. Hutchinson is a distant one.” 

The Commodore nodded, and Nellie, belatedly thinking her tone was snappish, pushed at her mourning rings and sighed. “Please forgive me. It was a late evening, and I’m not quite myself.” 

“It was,” he agreed, “But you need apologize for nothing.” 

She murmured her thanks, and the rest of the walk home passed by in relative quiet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaze upon my half-baked attempts to gesture at justification for the East India Company operating in the Caribbean!
> 
> In all seriousness:
> 
> I admit, I've manufactured a little bit of history, here: while Boston saw the so-called Knowles Riot in response to Admiral Charles Knowles's impressment of 46 men in 1747 (during the War of Austrian Succession), the incident during the War of Spanish Succession that both Nellie and Aunt B allude to is entirely fictional (so far as I'm aware!) - the Act that Aunt B mentions was the subject of some controversy, but had excluded colonial subjects in North America from impressment from 1707, though it and its precedent were, clearly, later ignored. Nibley doesn't call what he tried to do in Cape Ann impressment, but that's what Massachusetts considers it. This is all from some half-remembered _The Evil Necessity_ \- sorry, Denver Brunsman!
> 
> The family history I made up for James Norrington comes back, here; his mother, the entirely fictional Catherine Byng Norrington, is a cousin of the very real (and as Aunt B points out, unfortunately deceased) Admiral George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, who had been the First Lord of the Admiralty from 1727 to his death in 1733. If you've heard the Byng name before, it's not that guy! It's his son, Admiral John Byng, who was executed for failing to "do his utmost" to engage the enemy at the Battle of Minorca in 1757. Voltaire apparently found this noteworthy, since a parallel event makes an appearance in _Candide_. And if you look to your left/further on in the chapter, you can observe yet more allusions to the backstory for Norrington and his father from Rob Kidd's _Sins of the Father_!
> 
> Uncle Bendish (finally actually making a speaking appearance) and the good Commodore allude to the coming war with Spain: The War of Jenkins' Ear, which was at least partially what it says on the tin. In 1731, British captain Robert Jenkins allegedly ran afoul of Spanish forces, leading to the severing of his ear - which would, apocryphally, be displayed before Parliament and Walpole (after being pickled) in the later 1730s. Walpole's government had been ... lukewarm, you could say, on the idea of going to war with Spain, as evidenced by the 8 years between the alleged casus belli and the declaration of war; among other reasons for the eventual outbreak was the issue of the Asiento de Negros granted by the Spanish government to the British (via the South Sea Company) to allow British merchants to sell enslaved Africans in Spanish ports, and whether it would continue in effect. Nellie isn't thrilled by the prospect of war, which at least is over a year in the offing.
> 
> The potential of a serious crackdown on illicit trade in sugar and molasses in the Caribbean is another fiction, for which I hope I'll be excused, but the concern over the cost of war is a less so - Uncle Bendish mentions the South Sea Company by name, and how that company, at least in part formed to help discharge debts after the War of Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War, led to serious economic problems in 1720. I admit, the whole East-India-Company-in-the-Caribbean thing's bothered me ~~since 2006~~ , so, herein lies some flimsy speculation (outside of the canon timeline) for what's going on - it's the EIC pushing for this ahistorical crackdown, which perhaps, I hope, fits into what we see of Beckett in DMC and AWE.
> 
> Lastly, major shout-out to my friend F-, who read multiple drafts of this, advised very faithfully, and was incredibly kind about earlier, clunkier versions. <3


	9. Manpower and Mutton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Theo Groves considers new developments from the ball, Commodore Norrington faces a challenge from an unexpected quarter, and a grateful Mrs. Treat hosts the _Garland_ 's officers at dinner - at which the history of piracy in New England is briefly reviewed.

Surprising no one – no one who knew him, at least – Tollemache had fallen desperately in love with handsome Mary Coggeshall after dancing with her once at the officer’s ball, with all the tragic fervor of a Drury Lane understudy unsure if the plum part of Romeo Montague would pass his way again. Greene, in response to the tack the wardroom mess conversation had taken since then, had only grown more aloof, and (Theodore Groves supposed) that left him to lend the sympathetic ear to his enthusiastic and very, _very_ naive junior. Tollemache might have been midway between twenty and thirty, though he didn’t seem it; there was an unworldly hopelessness about him that was _almost_ endearing – or would have been, had they not all been subjected to paens to Miss Coggeshall’s womanly beauty and sweet-sounding voice, _like the sweetest bauble-brook_ …

Well. There really was only so much of that a man could take.

Still, Tollemache stood his watches and undertook his tasks with ability, and, considering some of the other officers currently under Norrington’s command, he was prepared to withstand a little more in the way of _vegetable love_ and _the curled trammels of her hair_. An over-appreciation for Marvell, to Theo’s mind, was vastly preferable to an over-estimation of either one’s position of authority or the tractability of Massachusetts men. Indeed, for a man who’d weathered the Restoration and come out smiling, Andrew Marvell had even been something of a Calvinist – if he remembered his father’s vague opinions on the subject correctly.

Theo rubbed his temples, feeling a splitting headache approaching – and, with a glance at the guttering candle-stub, set aside the latest reports from Moreland on the harbor’s comings and goings, trusting that the customs-man could keep a few minutes in this dark hour – time enough for him to drain his glass and hunt up his hat, now cowering in an ungentlemanly fashion under his cot. No time for reprimands, though: he’d thrown it there in a fit of pique. Nibley – _fucking_ Nibley. 

One had to keep a sense of humor about these things, he supposed, stalking through the hushed _Garland_ up to the quarterdeck. Humor was one of the few positive things the world furnished freely: it cost nothing in silver or gold to look around himself, at the foibles of his fellow men, and laugh. Bitterly, perhaps, but there it was. Some men went sailing through life on the trade winds and westerlies of their family influence – and some men, very much like poor (but exceptionally witty and charming) Lieutenant Theodore Groves, had to slog along through the very horse latitudes, wetting their own sails as they went. Marvell had something for that, didn’t he? _They also serve who only stand and wait?_

_Milton_ , he heard his aged father’s voice fill in. Right.

Despite the hour, Norrington was stalking up and down the windward side of the quarterdeck, his foul mood a second, menacing presence in the darkness: Greene, on watch, had hunched over on himself under the lee of the wheel, clearly trying to avoid Norrington’s notice. The lieutenant’s pale eyes glinted some kind of plea, which Theo ignored. If Greene wanted his sympathy, he could take his turn playing parent to Tollemache.

As if that was the greater share of anyone’s troubles. _Fucking Nibley_ , he thought again, installing himself inconspicuously against the taffrail, watching the scattered lights of Boston bob in the distance. If there was any justice in this world, Nibley would be sleeplessly pacing his own quarterdeck, too. He doubted it, of course, but one had to hope.

* * *

It hadn’t all been like that, since the news from Cape Ann had broken like a thundercloud: the ball had been a success – qualified by circumstances, but still generative of good will in Boston and plain _fun_ : he’d eaten well and drunk well, laughed at any number of jokes, danced through the night with many pleasant partners, including the handsomest woman in Boston, Miss Coggeshall herself, before Tollemache had fallen swooning into her _eyes as great and dark as the wine-dark sea_ (and so, through no fault of the lady’s own, put him off interacting at all with her, lest it affect Tollemache in some great way). Poor Jarsdel had gotten half-stewed off the punch, but wasn’t it better for boys to do that under the eyes of their superiors, rather than whatever ratholes the midshipmen might otherwise drink in? He had certainly done worse himself, as a sheltered country parson’s son with his first pay and an abundance of wit – and no sense to speak of.

He’d done good work, too: Theodore Groves was a man who could make himself agreeable, with a little trouble, and if some Bostonians chose to assume that he was just an unconnected young officer who didn’t know enough to make unguarded words useful, well. That was their own affair.

Some of it, naturally, was worthless. Some of it was amusingly worthless: two young ladies whispering behind their fans that Midshipman Jarsdel was Commodore Norrington’s natural son, which was just _possible_ , so long as you assumed James Norrington at eighteen had been capable of interacting meaningfully with the opposite sex – and, when Groves had met him, at that man’s twenty-one, Norrington had turned cochineal red on the occasion of handsome Widow Devers’s discrete proposition. What could Theo possibly do with _that_ piece of gossip? Poor Jarsdel, cowering behind some flowers, would take the chatter which ought to have laid blame at Norrington’s feet as an indictment of his own conduct, somehow – and his conscientiously virtuous commanding officer would find very precious little to be amused by in it.

Speaking of – there was unamusingly worthless gossip, too. He’d heard some biting comments directed at poor Widow Treat, likely for the crime of being the honored guest: most having to do with her audacious conduct on Long Wharf, though there was one or two side comments made about a criminal ancestor that Theo could make neither head nor tail of, and so mentally waved off. But if the widow wasn’t of interest to him, the same couldn’t be said of all her acquaintances: he’d managed, by virtue of being his most disarming self, to divert that conversation around the Widow Treat towards her friend, Captain Hendricks. 

Not necessarily a popular man – unfashionable and unsociable, unlikely to be found at this sort of gathering, though he possessed the means to fix that, should he ever care to. A resolute bachelor – a convert from the Dutch Protestantism of his youth, but a steady churchgoer ( _though_ , one lady had added, _while you could call the man generous to the poor, you couldn’t really call him pious_ ) – a fine seaman – politics a little suspect, more in line with the late Mr. Cooke’s popular philosophies than otherwise. He was from somewhere in New York, and had no care for his people there; he had no people, and Hendricks was likely not even his real name; he had come to Boston with Captain Samuel Treat, the widow’s late husband – just a hand he’d signed on somewhere in the West Indies to replace a man lost to fever, then, but he’d flown up the chain of command.

_Was Hendricks a man to resort to underhanded means to get his way?_ Theo’d phrased the question a little too broadly to be useful; he knew, from the shuttering expressions of some, that they were assuming he was speaking of the various tricks and ruses that a smuggler might use to pass off Port-au-Prince molasses as Port Royal. Better that than the real question: _Would Hendricks **kill** a man to get his way?_

The answer to the first question, both from those merchants who had fallen conspicuously in line, and from those who still regarded the squadron as an unwarranted interruption, was a resounding _perhaps_.

Frustrating, but there it was. It was poor, gristly meat to gnaw on, the knowledge that his instant suspicion of the man – from his likely having hired the gang that knocked Norrington in, from his indifference to the proceedings, his demeanor following Mrs. Treat’s rescue – wasn’t the product of a panicked imagination alone: poor meat, but it was his. And Theo Groves liked being proven right, even only partially, every once in a while – as personal vices went, he thought it a fairly innocuous one. 

If only he’d had time to luxuriate in it.

So late it might well have been morning, Norrington had abruptly waved him over to speak with Thomas Hutchinson in his stead, making a hasty excuse to that gentleman that he had forgotten an engagement, and could continue the conversation after the next set. Mr. Hutchinson, who had not known Norrington for the better part of a decade, accepted the explanation; Theo, however, knew better. While Mr. Hutchinson continued from the likely whereabouts of the _Teal_ ’s deserters to speak about the history of conflict between the Navy and Massachusetts mariners, and how different men had interpreted the Sixth of Anne’s injunctions regarding colonial seamen, Theo surreptitiously watched Norrington cross the room to speak with Mrs. Treat, who – _ah_. She was twisting her rings, the distressed gesture he’d noted to his commanding officer earlier in the evening.

_Well_. If not unusual, it was certainly notable – however seriously James Norrington took his debts, he took his position of authority even more so, and the dry history of Parliamentary legislation and royal edict aside, what had happened in Cape Ann was no laughing matter. Nibley had been hanged in effigy! Theo’d little personal experience with this kind of unrest, but he’d wager his commission that it was, to say the least, no good omen. And a life-debt was a serious thing, but Norrington could have just as easily dispatched him to go fish the widow out of an uncomfortable conversation. He _should_ have dispatched Theo. 

But he didn’t. And so Theo had stood there thinking that perhaps, since the Bendishes were friends and allies, Norrington felt had obligation to be friend and ally to the family in return – but again, Theo returned to the conviction that he could have done it just as well. Norrington had _wanted_ to interfere on Mrs. Treat’s behalf, personally – and it left Theo wondering if Norrington had – probably unconsciously – taken a shine to the widow.

It would bear further minding, at any road.

And, as the return to the business of mitigating Nibley’s wreckage returned the next day, it was quickly shunted to the back of his mind.

Boston had grown restive – more restive, rather, their welcome never quite being warm before. Notable brawls in taverns along the waterfront had compelled Norrington to keep the Teals and Garlands mostly to the ships, which cheered no one, and merely changed the location of fights from Fish Street or Mackrill Lane to the gundeck. The natural sequel to the rise in violent disorder followed at the grating, while Norrington stood by like a statue, jaw clenched as though he meant to grind his teeth to powder.

* * *

It was not a surprise to be summoned to Norrington’s quarters at seemingly random intervals; that was part and parcel of naval life. Of late, the summons had been unpleasant, and later that week, when Theo heard the _Garland_ ’s many-throated mumblings coalesce into “Pass the word for Mr. Groves!” he tensed as though hearing the insistent staccato of ‘Beat to Quarters!’ 

Halfway to buckling on his sword-belt from the numb flush of dread, Theo stopped himself. It was a ridiculous instinct … and (he thought, entirely irreverently) the Lord above only knew what dizzying new heights of acerbity Norrington would be provoked to, by the sight of an armed opponent – rather than the usual unarmed ones he’d complained of.

His commanding officer looked up from his correspondence as Theo shut the great cabin door behind him.

“Mr. Groves. We’ve received another invitation.”

Theo made a bland acknowledgment.

“Mrs. Treat has invited the officers of the _Garland_ to dine with her family, ‘In recognition of their very gallant conduct at the Ascension ball.’ ”

This last, he assumed, was quoted from the letter on his commanding officer’s desk, which he’d been glancing at anxiously, anticipating some new and unwelcome developments. He would have sighed in relief, if Norrington had not been sitting there, cold as marble, with an unreadable expression on his face; as it was, Theo fought to keep his expression neutral, and not betray the particular interest he had in Norrington’s dealings with Mrs. Treat. “That is very good of her, sir.”

Norrington nodded, as though considering his words. Theo continued, when it became apparent that his commanding officer was not going to do so: “Do you intend to accept her invitation, sir?”

“I do.”

“Shall I make the arrangements, sir?”

“If you would, Lieutenant.” Norrington scanned the letter again before handing it over, and Theo committed the details, as well as the bold hand which signed itself _Mrs. E. C. Treat_ , to memory. It was a courteous, largely impersonal letter – impersonal, save that Mrs. Treat had mentioned Mr. Jarsdel specifically. He was surprised for a moment, but reasoned that if the _Garland_ ’s youngest midshipman could have inspired him to feel nearly paternal worry at times, then a woman who was widely hailed as a devoted mother probably felt nearly the same way – at any road, Jarsdel would be able to report on his campaigns with Caesar in Gaul, which would relieve the _Garland_ ’s officers of that duty for a time. That must be regarded as a good thing.

Theo quickly and silently reviewed what would need to be done, and found himself remembering Tollemache’s sad preoccupation with an internal sigh. “May I suggest that Lieutenant Tollemache be left with the ship, sir?”

Norrington raised his brows, rather than ask the question.

“He’s enamored with Miss Coggeshall, and with the lady’s marriage impending ...”

“Yes, that would be a mercy,” said Norrington, frostily. Theo smarted a bit at his tone, before belatedly recalled why his friend had been so relieved to be recalled from Jamaica, official reprimand be damned. At least he wouldn’t have to see Elizabeth Swann stand before the altar of St. Peter’s and marry Turner.

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” he said, hastily, ducking out of the cabin with all haste.

* * *

Theo was glad to see the afternoon of the dinner arrive, and was not alone in that joy. The invited midshipmen were proud as peacocks to be remembered, none more so than Mr. Jarsdel, who had spent the whole week trading duties with Mr. Rodd, to borrow his dress coat – all of Jarsdel’s coats being several inches behind his wrists, from an inconvenient mid-Atlantic bout of growth. Greene had scraped together some good cheer of his own, and even Norrington himself seemed entirely relieved to spend time amongst allies, which Theo mentally noted. The end of summer was coming, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen as the _Garland_ ’s boat approached the wharf, and the trees and homes of Boston cast welcome shade across the roads and by-ways in the still heat of the afternoon.

To all parties’ embarrassment, the officers arrived too early. The maid, with a sure curtsey and an uncertain look, showed them into the parlor with a delicate cough: and there Mrs. Treat’s children were reading from a book and speaking animatedly with Mr. and Mrs. Bendish, while Miss Coggeshall and Mrs. Treat looked indulgently on. 

( _Animatedly_ , he owned, was the diplomatic word – in reality, the two Treat children had requisitioned the fire irons and were miming some desperate battle, until they saw the officers enter.)

“Forgive us, Commodore Norrington,” Mrs. Treat said smoothly, collecting the pokers and passing them off to the maid, with as little self-consciousness as if she had only been handing off her gloves, “We were just concluding out visit.”

Norrington said something blandly appropriate, following the widow’s cue. Mrs. Treat looked relieved, and gestured to her two children, suddenly transfigured into models of good posture and manners.

“May I introduce my children? Mary Treat, who we call Polly –”

“For my Aunt Mary,” the reedy girl said proudly, as she curtseyed.

Her mother gave her an indulgent smile. “My ancestor as well, dearest – don’t forget her. And this is Samuel Treat, who we call Sam.”

It was not lost on Theo that the boy avoided saying who he was named for, making a silent, solemn little bow to the company instead.

“Sam, Polly, this is Commodore Norrington, Lieutenant Groves and Lieutenant Greene, and Midshipmen St. John, Sandys, and Jarsdel.”

With a minimum of prompting, both Polly and Sam Treat said they were very pleased to make the company’s acquaintance, and Sam Treat flushed pink to the ears when Norrington made a passing comment that he was the young man whose Latin he had heard so much about. Mrs. Treat beamed, as well – but realized a little too late that her daughter’s expression had clouded, sharp little eyes narrowing at her brother and the company – and that Polly Treat, in short, had gotten the bit between her teeth.

“Commodore Norrington,” piped the girl, with a precocious jut of her chin, “What’s ‘impressment’?”

You could have heard a pin drop in the parlor. 

Naturally, Theo’s first instinct was to laugh – but he hadn’t gotten to first lieutenant by _always_ saying exactly what he thought, and so bit it down, looking about himself:

The Bendishes, as befit their position, wore masks of polite neutrality – if a little strained. Miss Coggesshall, as well – though she leaned heavier on the ‘strained’. Sam Treat gaped like a fish at his sister – and poor Mrs. Treat! She had gone pale as the moon, though there was _something_ of a smile losing the war to a look of severe consternation.

“My dearest,” she began to say, reprovingly, but Norrington – apparently taking the measure of the situation with better humor than Theo expected – stopped Mrs. Treat’s apologies, before addressing her daughter:

“A reasonable question to ask, Miss Treat,” he began, with a carefully neutral look that the midshipmen were all very familiar with, “It chiefly has to do with war-time necessity, and you have had the good fortune to have not lived through a war. During a war, if and when the King’s Navy has a need of sailors to defend Britain and her empire, sailors may be compelled to join the Navy and serve the Crown.”

“Compelled?”

“By force of arms, if necessary,” said Norrington, “But they are paid for their labor, and treated like any other man once in the service.”

“Oh,” said Polly, frowning. Still, she was her mother’s daughter, and thanked Norrington with a pretty little curtsey. Mrs. Treat ushered the two children out of the room, then, and into the arms of a maid – and Theo could hear the sounds of the three ascending the hall stairs, even as the widow thanked Norrington for humoring her daughter in such a way.

Norrington brushed it off, but not unkindly, observing that her daughter was the least hostile interrogator he’d spoken to the whole week, which earned a polite laugh from the assembled party. A few more minutes’ conversation, and they went in to Mrs. Treat’s handsome, paneled hall to dine.

For her part, Mrs. Treat recovered her good cheer quickly, and between the excellence of her table, and her gracious shepherding of the conversation, dinner became a happy affair: it was the easiest thing in the world, after all, to be cheerful when the table seemed to groan with fish and meat, pies and puddings, all devoid of weevils and the sour taste of salt junk many months in the cask. The midshipmen attacked their food, and so the talk was largely left to the lieutenants, the Commodore, and their hosts. Sam Treat’s Latin featured, of course, leading Mrs. Treat to swell with a pride, and Commodore Norrington and Mrs. Treat traded comments on Addison’s _Cato_ , though the Lord alone knew when Norrington had found time to read it again, amidst all that had been occurring. The Bendishes complimented the officers’ ball once more, and by way a few scattered allusions, Mr. Bendish and Lieutenant Greene discovered a common boyhood in Hertfordshire. Nibley featured nowhere in this, and Theo thanked the Almighty for it – for some time, there was peace.

At a lull in the conversation, with the sun low on the horizon, Theo finally judged the wine low enough in the decanter, and the hour advanced enough that he might ask the question he had been sitting on since arrival. “Was that Captain Johnson’s _General History of the Pyrates_ your children had been reading?”

Mrs. Treat, with the same look of warring consternation and maternal affection, replied that they had been – a gift from Captain Hendricks, a family friend – had Lieutenant Groves made his acquaintance? Theo bit back _from where_ he knew Hendricks, and what he suspected the man of, opting to say some vague compliments to the man’s _Watch and Wait_ , as well as his seamanship. This pleased their hostess, who said Captain Hendricks really was one of the finest seamen she’d ever met, and her husband, Captain Treat had been lucky to have him for his mate as long as he did.

That appeared to match what he had heard at the ball, but the mention of her late husband made Mrs. Treat withdraw a little, and Mary Coggeshall stepped into the conversational breach for her sister’s sake. “We have been reading from Reverend Mather’s sermons on the crimes and execution of William Fly, the pirate, and I suspect dear Polly complained that the late Reverend was a little,” she paused, delicately, diplomatically, “Well, a little severe.”

Theo looked to Norrington for permission, and then asked for clarification: “William Fly?”

“He was hanged here, in Boston, in 1726 – mutiny, murder, and piracy,” said Mrs. Treat, picking the line of conversation back up from her sister, “A short career, but a hard, brutal one. Nearly a perfect model of Hobbes’s state of nature. They say he re-tied his own noose on the scaffold, when the hangman’s knot displeased him.” 

She looked for a moment as though she had something else to add, but after glancing around the table at the officers settled for a slight shake of the head, and turned to her family. “Do you recall, Uncle? This was before my marriage.”

“Fly refused to repent to the last, so it was a short affair,” Mr. Bendish diplomatically replied.

“A great disappointment to Revered Mather, I assume,” said Norrington, dryly.

The widow – with an apologetic look to her sister, who probably had not wanted to speak about any of this – replied it was, hence the severity of his sermons.

While Norrington and Mrs. Treat went back and forth for a few moments on Mather – because Norrington had _of course_ found time to familiarize himself with that worthy, perhaps even this specific discourse – Theo privately wondered. This was perhaps not the expected reading material for children, though their colonial cousins tended to be serious and dour sorts, at times – and, he owned, his own moral instruction as a young man had tended to regular readings of the Articles of War, what had hardly been cheerful. And it was hardly his place to comment on Mrs, Treat’s mothering, too – though he was beginning to suspect she was more indulgent a parent than otherwise, if Polly Treat’s conduct was representative.

Too – he wondered what Mrs. Treat had intended to say, before evidently thinking better of it. For a merchant’s widow, she spoke nearly respectfully of Fly, who (he guessed, from Norrington and the widow’s comments) had killed his captain before marauding between Charleston and Boston; whatever it was, Theo had to admit he’d admired more than one man for gallows bravado. But Norrington’s black mood over Theo’s comments on Tollemache’s attachment had fixed Port Royal and disgrace a little too close to the front of his mind, and he immediately abandoned that line of thought.

While his mind had been wandering, the conversation had itself moved on – some other effort of the Reverend Mather, to catalogue the ecclesiastical, criminal, and miraculous histories in the history of these northern colonies – _Magnalia Christi Americana_ , muttered Mary Coggeshall, her good manners unable to completely eliminate the fond irritation of a younger sister in her tone.

But that passed, too, as Lieutenant Greene, who had been following the Commodore’s dialogue with Mrs. Treat, took advantage of a question posed to him about mirages at sea, following an abbreviated account of a ghost-ship the Reverend Mather claimed to have haunted the harbor at New Haven nearly a century ago. In the conversational paused that followed, he went on:

“You’ll forgive me for trespassing on your conversation, Mrs. Treat, but was William Fly exceptional? In these waters?” Greene looked anxiously at Theo and Norrington, upon whose good opinion his career rested, and then continued, “I’ve read a great deal about piracy in the Caribbean, but I have little knowledge of these colonies.”

Mrs. Treat’s polite smile did not reach her eyes, though her tone was as light. “Oh, we’ve a long history of piracy, in New England and further south. I would not have you think that such a phenomenon was unique to the Caribbean. Why, the treasure of fifty ships at least was lost off the Cape, when Sam Bellamy’s _Whydah Galley_ was wrecked a score of years ago.”

To this, Mary Coggeshall and the Bendishes agreed, it being a well-known local story – and Bellamy was well-known enough that Theo and his fellow officers had heard it as well. Still, Samuel Bellamy alone did not quite prove Mrs. Treat’s assertion, and the rest of the table discussed what they knew. 

“Edward Low was a Boston man, as well,” said Norrington, “If my memory does not deceive me.”

Mrs. Bendish, who was the only native of the city at the table, agreed – a sailmaker, or a sail-maker’s apprentice, she thought, though he had not been born in this place. “He married a Boston woman, and left after she died in childbed. A sad history,” she concluded.

“Perhaps that drove him mad,” said Mrs. Treat, taking a sip of her wine. Mrs. Bendish shot her niece a speaking glance.

The company went into Ned Low’s terrible career, without actually discussing the brutalizations and tortures – that being, Theo presumed, inappropriate to the genteel table and polished, paneled chamber, with its bright and sweet-smelling candles that Mrs. Treat had earlier and indulgently explained were manufactured from waxy berries which grew in this country. They couldn’t agree on what had happened to the man – whether her had died at sea, or been killed by his own men, or retired to live on his spoils in Brazil or Mexico or Madagascar. It was by walking back down that road that they came to a point on which something was known – the fate of some of Low’s men aboard the _Ranger_ , captured by Solgard of the _Greyhound_.

But this was _something_ – Theo recalled Low’s career well, and the name of Solgard rang some other bell in his memory. Harris had been the captain of the _Ranger_ – captured off Block Island? A little over fifteen years past? The widow must have seen it as a girl. He asked, and nearly immediately regretted it. “They hanged in Newport, did they not?” 

“Twenty-six did, in a single afternoon,” replied Mrs. Treat, a little hollowly, enough that her sister looked quickly at her – prompting a quick smile and shake of the head, and she was all easiness again, “It was the summer of ’23. My – Our brother, John was just seventeen – and you, Mary, were still toddling about underfoot. The _Greyhound_ brought the _Ranger_ and Low’s men to Newport in June – they’d been taken off Block Island, and so Newport was the closest. The trial was a quick thing, all told – started one day in mid-July, and ended two or three days later. Some of the men pled compulsion, that the only choice Low and his men had given them was a share in the voyage or death by the sword. Save for two, it was to no avail, as is usual – or so I have come to understand.”

“Did you witness the trial?” pressed Greene, who had not minded the ashen look on Mrs. Treat’s face.

“No – but it was all Newport spoke about for weeks. News about the proceedings couldn’t be escaped.”

“And not only in Newport,” interjected Mr. Bendish, with a glance at his niece.

His wife agreed – it had overwhelmed the real presses and rumor mills of Boston, as well, and Dummer, the acting Governor of Massachusetts Colony, had been summoned down to Newport to preside over the trial of those twenty-eight men. 

“Acting-Governor, since Governor Shute had gone to England following a serious dispute with the Assembly,” said Mr. Bendish, who added that he had not yet been elected to that august body then, so was not speaking only from memory, not experience, “Chiefly over the power of the of the office, but also regarding the issue of its salary. I won’t bore you, gentlemen, with that piece of history – suffice to say it was an acrimonious time in Massachusetts.”

“There was the war, too,” added Mrs. Treat.

“War?” Theo couldn’t help the question.

“Yes, with the Abenaki – the Indians of the Eastern Territory,” Mrs. Bendish clarified, for the benefit of the new-comers, before continuing on with a polite delicacy, “Governor Shute was a man of martial spirit – had been with Marlborough at Blenheim, in his youth.”

“And a servant of naval interests – for some time, his was the loudest voice protecting mast-pines in the King’s Woods,” said her husband, loyally – the Bendishes, careful to express criticism of Shute’s conduct, were still sensible of the position he had occupied in the ongoing conflict over royal power in Massachusetts.

There was a little more to be said about the various revisions and enforcements of the aforementioned White Pine Act, which was more important than interesting, though it had the happy effect (Theo noticed) of thoroughly deflecting the conversation from piracy in general, and Newport in particular. 

Mrs. Treat seemed entirely relieved by this. By and by, she recovered enough to teasingly call the talk of mast-pines and forestry _tedious to our friends, and lumbering to all concerned_ – which won a laugh from the company (and an exasperated, but fond sigh from her sister). 

“You were telling me of a letter you received from your cousin, Uncle,” Mrs. Treat said, changing the subject with an indulgent smile at the company, “With an account of a new play of James Thompson’s at the Drury Lane. It seemed in the spirit of the classical inquiry of earlier in the evening?”

“James Thompson of _Liberty_?” asked Norrington.

“The same,” replied Mr. Bendish, pushing aside his plate as though to really concentrate on the retelling. “It is a tragedy, regarding the misconduct of Agammemnon …”

* * *

Later that night, sober and missing the warm cloud of good wine and company, Theo rolled the memory of all that had occurred, all that he had learned, around his mind – with a cool breeze the empty quarterdeck, unhaunted by Norrington’s restless pacing, was as good a place as any to think. Indeed, he was glad that Norrington was out of sight, for there wasn’t much hope for thinking about his commanding officer’s conduct while the man glowered and scowled by the light of the binnacle lamp – and Norrington wouldn’t thank him in the slightest for the direction Theo’s thoughts were taking.

Where Norrington and the widow were concerned, Theo was nearly sure to think his assessment from the ball had been correct – little things, here and there, that he hadn’t bothered with before were beginning to add up now: the Dryden _Aeneid_ and Addison _Cato_ which had taken up residence on Norrington’s desk, the quick interest in Mrs. Treat’s nervous habit, the dance Norrington had asked for late in the officer’s ball. He’d not found any of it significant by itself, save this last instance, but taken together a pattern – or the beginnings of one – might be discerned. 

He let his imagination run ahead. What end? If Norrington had become fond of the widow, it was likely nearly unconscious – else, Theo assumed, he’d be more … well. Elizabeth Swann was the obvious comparison, though one felt a little for Mrs. Treat, in full _contrast_ – it was hard to compete with Swann’s money and connections, or Elizabeth’s polish and wit. Still. The widow was a courteous, intelligent kind of woman, who liked society and (some sympathy for William Fly and his men aside) followed its functioning very well – and evidently had the energy and capability to withstand being a seaman’s wife. _One able second in command recognizes another_ , Theo thought, a little irreverently – though he meant it kindly: his whole useful life had been lived aboard ships, and he’d quickly developed a feeling for who could be trusted with the common good and who could not. If he had to make a wager, he would have bet sterling that if Elinor Treat had been born Edward, she would have been a very capable lieutenant, indeed.

But that was getting fanciful, and the hard facts of his observation remained. At the very least, she and the Commodore shared certain assumptions about the world, her unexpected sympathies aside – and Mrs. Treat seemed as though she would be sensible of James Norrington’s better points. If it came to anything - or if the people of Boston didn't drive them out, first.

Sometime later, he heard the familiar footfalls, and vacated the weather side of the quarterdeck with a respectful nod and a stifled sigh, sheltering himself under the lee of the wheel out of sight. Time would tell, he supposed – and until then, Norrington’s pacing wore a path across the deck, and Theo watched the lights of Boston.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, the _Garland_ 's unofficial book club is back in session, after a few chapters of no one giving a damn. Poor, lovesick Lieutenant Tollemache has rather been quoting an excess of Andrew Marvell - specifically, from "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Fair Singer"; Theo, after a bit of a misstep, does get the attribution for _they also serve who only stand and wait_ correct - Milton. 
> 
> Theo alludes in passing to the Sixth of Anne, part of a body of legislation that touched on the limits and legalities of impressment; one of the important points of the Sixth of Anne was that it (could be interpreted to have) banned the impressment of seamen in colonial ports - this is, right now, an academic discussion, as however unlawful, Nibley's conduct in Cape Ann does not quite constitute impressment. But that's certainly where some of Nellie's countrymen's minds went.
> 
> _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates_ , published by an as-yet inconclusively identified author under the pseudonym of "Captain Charles Johnson" in 1724 (and later revised and expanded), was a massively popular and terribly sensational account of ... well, pretty much what it said on the tin. Several of the men mentioned in this chapter - Edward Low(e), William Fly, Samuel Bellamy - had their own entries, some more fantastical than others. Bellamy's, in particular, contain some fine speeches that are pretty damning of "honest" captains and merchants, regarding their conduct towards common sailors - as was William Fly's gallows-speech. Cotton Mather, the influential Puritan minister and author, did urge Fly to repent at the last, but Fly refused. Mathew wrote a sermon about it anyway, which apparently Polly finds significantly more tiresome than her mother does Mather's previously mentioned _Magnalia Christi Americana_ \- since Nellie has finally found an opportunity to bring up a ghost ship in from of Commodore Norrington and his men. Alas, the results were inconclusive.
> 
> Samuel Bellamy's ship, the _Whydah Galley_ , was wrecked off Cape Cod in 1717 (and the one of the two survivors of the wreck, plus Bellamy's men captured in another vessel, were taken to Boston, convicted, repented of their sins before Cotton Mather, and were hanged. The other survivor was sold as a slave.) - and was rediscovered in 1984. The _Whydah Galley_ had been built and worked as a slave ship for a year before Bellamy captured it and turned it to piracy.
> 
> The trial and hangings alluded to in Newport in 1723 were real - the _Ranger_ , captained by Charles Harris and sailing with Edward Low, was captured by HMS _Greyhound_ , Captain Peter Solgard, and the survivors were brought to Newport in the colony of Rhode Island to stand trial. Twenty six were hanged at Gravelly Point, cut down, and buried between the high and low water marks on Fort (also known as Goat) Island. It apparently was quite a spectacle - not only did much of the court tryingthe _Ranger_ 's men come from Massachusetts, spectators came from good distances away to see the hangings. Nellie, at fifteen, didn't quite take the expected lesson from it - she certainly finds the memory more disturbing than morally edifying.


	10. For Their Own Benefit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nellie has a series of discomforting conversations, and finds little comfort in meditating on her past.

“ ‘ _Damn the sloop, we must sink her_ ,’ ” drawled Hendricks, pretending to be engrossed in the battered _Gazette_ he held before him, and clearly not reading a single word, “ ‘ _And she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws_ –’ ”

“For Heaven’s sake, Captain.”

“ ‘ – By laws, _which rich men have made for their own security._ ’ ” 

Nellie Treat grabbed the _Gazette_ from his hands with an undignified huff, looking around to see that no one else had heard. But the room outside Mr. Bishop’s office was nearly empty – empty certainly of Minot, his student, who had scuttled from his allotted desk at the first whiff of trouble, and now, likely, was pinned between Mr. Bishop and his opponent in a towering row. Poor lad. The only other occupant was Susannah – who had come with Nellie on her errands, and was knitting in an unobtrusive corner, concentrating as though the breaking of the seven seals could not move her from the task.

Hendricks, meanwhile, propped his boots on the cold fire-grate with a cheerful whistle, and Nellie rose to pace the room. It was two short weeks until Mary’s wedding, and though there was no rational reason for Nellie to fret, over the legal arrangements and the money to be settled and property transferred and a dozen little things – the fact remained she was. As her worries went, it had two things chiefly to recommend it: first, a successful marriage to a smart, well-established young man was a thing to be celebrated, and it gave Nellie joy to think she had, in part, given to her sister this greatest gift: not only choice in matrimony, but the ability to be discerning; second, Nellie, like the rest of Boston, was uneasily waiting to see what would happen next, regarding the squadron and the enforcement of duties, and she’d worn herself out on worries there.

So she had gone to Mr. Bishop, to go over the settlement one more time.

“Do you know who he’s speaking with?”

Hendricks shrugged, before observing no one would be able to hear them over all of that.

“And you are taking this opportunity to quote Samuel Bellamy at me.”

“I had heard you were speaking of him, and piracy, of late,” said Hendricks, smothering a grin, “And in such elevated company, too!”

Nellie spent a moment wondering _how_ Hendricks had heard what conversation was on the table at the dinner some few days ago, before her friend took pity on her: “Mary reported it all to Polly, and Polly, as an able lieutenant, told me, when I had come to call last and found you out.”

“Did my daughter also ask you what ‘impressment’ meant?”

“No. Did you tell her to?”

“She asked _Commodore Norrington_ what impressment was,” Nellie replied, rubbing her temples, “I hope you’ll forgive me for thinking that it seemed like something you would have found – amusing.”

Hendricks snorted, not even bothering to laugh behind his hands, and Nellie – very generously, she thought! – waited a few moments before cutting off his mirth with a sharp remark, which rolled off her friend like water off an oil-cloth cloak.

“How did she find the Commodore’s answer?”

“Informative enough that she’s been asking me why Englishmen allow something so unjust.”

“From the mouths of babes, eh, Mrs. T?”

Nellie sat down opposite Hendricks with another dramatic huff. “If you had children of your own, Captain, you wouldn’t find this a tenth as amusing.”

“Ah, but I’ll never marry, and so I expect I’ll never find out,” he replied, dismissively, before Nellie reminded him that if she perished she’d hold him at least partially responsible for raising Polly and Sam – and he shot back that the Bendishes would take the sprogs in first, and, anyway, he couldn’t imagine having him as a guardian would at all set Polly and Sam up in a respectable life, which Nellie had to shamefully concede was correct.

“And besides,” Hendricks said, fishing out his pipe, “You’ll outlive us all, out of sheer spite.”

But this was too close to too poorly closed a wound, for both of them, and they left it behind quickly for happier memories – at least in part, for they eventually found their way back to Captain Johnson and Sam Bellamy, and how well the children had been enjoying the book.

“Whatever happened to Samuel’s copy?” asked Hendricks, after a time. Nellie twisted her rings.

“Lost, somewhere along the way.” 

Tens of thousands of sea-miles, two homes, three different ships – setting aside Captain Treat’s generous nature, fast friends with almost everyone he met. Nellie had no proper idea, but she only had one strong memory of that volume – in the _Sally_ ’s cabin (which she had found cramped before seeing where Hendricks, then Captain Treat’s mate, slept), in near-darkness due to the violence of the storm, her new husband and Hendricks traded off reading to her while she suffered through her sea-sickness, and Mary clung sniffling to her side. _An auspicious start to a marriage_ , she’d thought miserably, praying the Almighty would see her craven soul for what it was and strike her down, if only to stop the nausea. 

It had been Bellamy, then, too. She remembered: it had been some great joke between Hendricks and Captain Treat, about dread deities and tipples and thunderstorms being a drunken row, quoted in passing as one man shucked off his oilskins and the other donned them, and Nellie, sat up in Captain Treat’s cot, asked what the meaning of it was.

“You’re in for it now,” Hendricks had said, on his way out the door with a cheerful wink – and her husband had gone to his chest, and fetched out a then-new volume. 

“Shall I read to her, Mary?” asked Captain Treat as he returned, chucking her sister under the chin with determined good cheer, “It’ll pass the time, and I expect the storm will blow itself out soon enough.”

Mary, pleased to be treated as an Authority on her sister’s well-being, had replied that of course he must, and so Captain Treat had wedged a chair into a corner, and wedged his great frame into that, so that he would be safe from the violent pitch and roll brought on by the waves. “Here it is,” he had said, coming to the appointed page, “Black Samuel Bellamy and his men weathering a storm, far worse than the present one – ‘ _but among these Wretches, the Effect was different, for they endeavoured by their Blasphemies, Oaths, and horrid Imprecations, to drown the Uproar of jarring Elements. Bellamy swore he was sorry he could not run out his Guns to return the Salute, meaning the Thunder, that he fancied the Gods had got drunk over their Tipple, and were gone together by the Ears_.’”

“That was very bad of them,” Mary had said, and Captain Treat had laughed uproariously at that, agreeing that Bellamy and his men were not quite the paragons of virtue she and her sister were, and they had gone on in this way for some time, until Mary finally had fallen asleep against her side, and Captain Treat, scarcely looking as though he had neither slept nor eaten for a day, had moved his chair so that he could hold her hand in his great ones and tell her they would be safe in Boston soon. 

“You’re a brave woman, Nellie,” her husband had said, when he had to leave her, “And I swear to you, we’ll be home soon.”

Nellie was abruptly yanked out of these reminiscences by the slamming open of the office-door, and a man she belatedly recognized as Mr. Loring storming out the door under a black cloud of bad temper. She hastily checked under her eyes for traces of tears – though there were none, she noted with bittersweet relief.

Captain Hendricks turned to her and raised his brows, before gathering himself up at Minot’s summons into Bishop’s office. “We’re departing for the West Indies soon,” he reminded her, “Come see me when you can.”

* * *

After her conversation with Mr. Bishop, which both parties agreed bad-temperedly was an unwarranted waste of time, though Bishop was the richer for it and Nellie was a little soothed by hearing that she had well taken care of some parts of her life, she went to the Bendish house to speak with Aunt B. She’d had little opportunity to speak with her Aunt since the dinner, and, as she had been waging her campaign of reason and kinship on Margaret Hutchinson as Aunt B had asked, it was high time to report – and to hear whether or not it had had any effect on Thomas Hutchinson’s wavering disposition.

Nellie, truthfully, still could not say whether she _hoped_ she’d succeeded. Nibley’s autocratic conduct was a thing she only saw and understood by its effect – much like a cold wind from the north, when she was snug before the fire – and so while she wanted his domineering curbed (especially as Aunt B had taken care to remind her that Nibley was able to behave in such a way because of his parentage, which grated at her sensibilities) she still worried more about Commodore Norrington’s inexorable campaign against smuggling. That campaign, if not suspended, had certainly been curtailed these last two weeks – and the air had been the sweeter for it! She’d had a few good night’s rest, which had made her feel almost a new woman – though some of that had assuredly worn off as the tensions on the waterfront wormed their way inland, rotting her peace from the inside.

Aunt B met her in the parlor, with tea laid out on the table. They exchanged pleasantries, and Nellie summarized where she had gone and what she had heard, over the past few days: social inanities, waterfront gossip, and her visit to Mr. Bishop. “Mr. Loring was there, rowing with Mr. Bishop over something,” she concluded, with a tight, humorless smile, watching her Aunt sip her tea, “I really cannot consider the man’s interest in me seriously. His temper’s more violent than a storm.”

Aunt B said that Nellie would stand a better chance against him than whatever poor young miss he ended up marrying, but let the topic drop for the time being. “And how is Margaret Hutchinson?”

“Have you spoken at all with her husband?”

“No, though Mr. Bendish had the opportunity to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Oliver, who have had quite enough to deal with from his uncle Belcher to be useful.”

Mrs. Mary Sanford Oliver being Mrs. Margaret Sanford Hutchinson’s elder sister, Nellie’s family connection would have been useful there as well – but Andrew Oliver’s mother was Governor Belcher’s sister, and Aunt B had reasonably judged that the Olivers had too much riding on that family connection to risk the Governor’s displeasure at the moment. The Hutchinsons, then, had remained Nellie’s target in persuading continued support for the naval squadron. Just as well. Captain Treat had agreed with neither Oliver nor Hutchinson, though he and Nellie had gotten on a little better with the latter than the former.

“I wrote to Margaret Hutchinson, and took tea with her,” Nellie replied, fussing with her own dish, “She is well – and her daughter.”

Aunt B said she was pleased by the report, and inquired after Nellie’s success or failure.

“I cannot say. Mr. Hutchinson’s position in the Assembly is uncertain, but Mrs. Hutchinson believes he will never befriend Mr. Cooke’s old popular faction, and so he has little to gain by trying to curry favor regarding Norrington – not when he still intends to keep speaking out against the province’s increasing paper currency circulation.”

“And you supported her in this?”

Nellie, though distressed by inflation, privately thought Hutchinson was being an ass about Massachusetts’ bills of credit, but knew what her Aunt and Uncle believed – and what Hutchinson would continue to do. “I did. Mr. Hutchinson has precious little to gain by publically abandoning his support for the squadron, unpopular though the King’s men may be. Too, I reminded her that tensions with Spain have been increasing, and what protection the Navy affords us. Commodore Norrington may be cursed on every street corner in Boston, but another war, and perhaps we’ll be singing songs to him.”

“Good work, my dear,” Aunt B said, with an approving smile, which turned inward and a little regretful as she contemplated her next words: “Loathe as I am to look forwards towards a coming war, which will both derange commerce and bring death and suffering throughout the Empire, I cannot deny that a war will solve some of Boston’s current difficulties.”

Nellie, who despised the very idea of war from both her Quaker upbringing and her concern for profits, mutinously replied that she had rather deal with Commodore Norrington indefinitely than the Spanish Navy even for a short war. 

Aunt B looked at her curiously for a moment, but shook her head as though to brush away the thought. “Which brings us to a less pleasant topic, but I must speak of it with you. You mentioned Mr. Loring this morning, and I accept that he is – not a good prospect for you –”

“Aunt!”

“ – Not a good prospect for you,” Aunt B repeated, with a cool look, “But the war is coming. Your fortunes will be threatened. Remarriage may offer you some protection from the disruptions of the coming conflict, and preserve what you and Samuel built for your children.”

“Or this future husband of mine might turn out to be a burden. Or he may be ruined by the war, as I may be!”

“You needn’t marry another merchant or captain.”

Nellie drolly replied that if there was another class of prosperous men in Boston, she had yet to encounter it, which Aunt B waved away with a reminder that she had been transplanted once before – and so Nellie shot back that her friends and family were here, and she cared more for them than she ever had her family in Newport.

“You might marry a lawyer, then. There is always Mr. Cortauld.”

“I’d go from two to nine children overnight, and if the Lord is unkind, I have fifteen more years in which I might bear a man sons and daughters. A losing proposition on the costs of a good nursery-maid alone.”

Aunt B set aside her dish with an uncharacteristic clatter. “I fear you are not taking this seriously, Elinor. It cannot be that you are unafraid of the coming conflict, since both you and I remember you reacted poorly to that news, and it cannot be that you do not take the precarity of your situation seriously, since you have been at such pains to extricate yourself and your family from the liabilities Samuel left behind – and so, my dear, I am forced to ask a question that I suspect neither of us will much enjoy contemplating. For what reasons are you so set against remarriage?”

Nellie felt the question as a physical blow.

For a few moments, she breathed around the pain in her breast, only barely able to gather her thoughts and her words; there was the new, deeply-rooted pain she could scarcely speak of, and the older memories of her youth that had been so close to her consciousness of late. The former was unendurable; the latter only humiliating – and so, Newport it was:

“My father,” she began, weakly, before perversely gaining surety and purpose under Aunt B’s scrutiny, “You know what my family’s circumstances were. My father wasted every penny my mother, and then my step-mother, brought to their marriages. Mr. Bishop can name you a half-dozen cases, without effort, where a man has made free with a widow’s money after remarriage, in the last handful of years alone. _I will not_ let my children suffer, as I did, because of a man like my father. Polly will have a substantial dowry, such as neither I nor most of my sisters had – she cannot count on being as lucky as I was, a man like Captain Treat willing to take her with precious little but her looks and her wits. Sam will be educated, as none of my brothers were. I can manage my affairs so that they will not want, as I wanted.”

“Your care for your children and your responsibilities is commendable.”

“Thank you.”

And then came the ambush: “I cannot help but notice now, as you have been doing for some time: you call your husband Captain Treat.”

“I call my _late_ husband Captain Treat,” Nellie said, feeling as though her mind were a china plate that had been dropped and so shattered, with the pieces splintering out hither and yon; all she was left with was a sick feeling that she knew exactly where Aunt B meant to lead her with this line of conversation, and that she would not be able to escape it. 

“My nephew’s name was Samuel.” 

Nellie pressed her lips together and nodded.

“You have not said his name since he died, I think.”

“I have used his Christian name since then. The burial. Discussing his will with Mr. Bishop. My prayers.”

“But not informally – not in conversation, between you and I. Or with your children, or with Mary.”

Aunt B was holding her gaze in a steady way, at once cool and compassionate, and Nellie knew she was fussing with her rings, but had no way to stop herself. What did she want Nellie to say? What _could_ she say? Her mind, as it had for more than a year and a half, veered off at the prospect of approaching what she had lost – she vaguely knew that at some point, listening to the dirt drum hollowly on her husband’s coffin and then Jenny’s impossibly small one, she had –

Had what? _Something_ had changed, but she’d been too exhausted, too stupid with grief to know it. She hadn’t had time to question it or examine it, either, not with her sister and her surviving children down with the terrible throat distemper, her household in disarray, and herself preserved alone, teetering on the edge of a great internal cliff. Captain Treat had died, and so she found herself – _promoted_ , sole power and responsibility over so much shoved suddenly into her black-gloved hands.

Nellie knew herself to be a woman not much prone to self-reflection; she had always done what needed doing, and accounted herself grateful she had been blessed with considerable ability – and the luck that someone had seen it and loved her for it. After the cold earth was thrown in those graves, there was – there had been nothing to be _done_ about – there _was_ nothing to be _done_ about –

“He is gone,” she said, stupidly, after moments of choking on the unearthed pain.

“And he wouldn’t want you to suffer, my dear –”

She made a miserable, inchoate noise of protest, which went unheeded as Aunt B went on in a low, soothing voice.

“– Samuel wanted you and the children to be safe and well cared for. He never would have wished for you to be alone forever, or for Polly and Sam to grow up without a father.”

_Then he shouldn’t have died!_ , she thought – but couldn’t say, though by God she wanted to. It was ridiculous to turn her anger on him – he’d had no choice in the matter. His choice was in trusting her with everything, to manage it all as they would have in tandem. 

And yet – there was anger mixed in with the grief – anger with no point or path, no proper target, simply sitting and curdling in the corners of her soul.

“You’ve done well since he passed,” Aunt B continued, still softly, “But your circumstances are changing. Your cleverness and luck cannot sustain you forever. You must be practical.”

_Practical_!

Nellie bristled, welcoming the feeling of the grief giving way to thatanger, and the clear vent her Aunt had unintentionally given her. “I have been practical,” she replied, sharp as glass, “I have done what needed to be done for nearly two years. Why can you not trust me, as _Captain Treat_ evidently did?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but collected Susannah and stormed out.

* * *

Nellie paid her home a flying visit, after she recalled she had left her account books locked in their drawer when she had need of them to consult with Captain Hendricks, which hardly cheered her, or improved her mood. Polly and Sam, coming to the door to welcome her home, were sent hurrying back to their lessons – and Nellie nearly struck the china out of Mary’s hands, when she apologetically approached with a cool dish of tea, left over from the morning. Her sister’s eyes went wide and brimmed with tears, and Nellie – so happy to let her grief turn to directionless rage on the walk back from the Bendishes – found herself bereft of everything but shame. She apologized incoherently, found her books, and fled.

On Long Wharf, she found the _Watch and Wait_ at the center of a buzzing hive of activity – barrels rolled out of warehouses and swung aboard in great grape-like bunches. Mr. Johnson, Hendricks’s mate, stood at the bottom on the gangway and nodded to her and Susannah as they passed, and Hendricks himself waved them up towards the quarterdeck, where he’d set up an impromptu office from a few chairs and barrels not currently being stowed in the hold. Nellie laid her books and notes out there, for Hendricks to peruse; he attempted conversation in between writing notes of his own on what he might expect to sell last year’s corn for, and what price molasses and coffee and sugar commanded in different ports, but Nellie, though she had calmed herself since her earlier outbursts, was still rattled by her Aunt’s insinuations and her bad-tempered reaction to them – every lure and gambit he tried, she rebuffed.

Eventually, Hendricks had enough.

“All right, Mrs. T. Out with it. What’s got you in a mood? Old man Winship making difficulties for young Jabez and your sister, or challenging you on Holly and the _Constance_?”

Nellie wondered for a moment how Captain Hendricks would have heard of her spat with the senior Winship over command of the _Constance_ , before remembering that Hendricks and Holly were at least friendly. She huffed a sigh, fussed with her mourning rings, and admitted that, “Aunt B has indicated to me that I ought to consider remarriage sooner, rather than wait too long, while conflict with Spain is so close in the offing and my living will be disrupted.”

“And how was her advice received?”

“She found my reaction – hostile.”

Hendricks laughed, but there wasn’t much mirth in it – more like an echo of a laugh, or a memory of one, before making a fond but unflattering comparison to a common barnyard mule. His sketch of her character was unerringly correct, she owned, but she didn’t have to like it – and not when he took his pipe from between his teeth and sighed. “Your Aunt is right, you know.”

Nellie frowned and denied it.

“If war’s coming – and it is – you’ll count yourself blessed if all you face are increased costs. The Spanish Navy and their privateers out for blood? Won’t matter how good a trading partner we’ve been to them these long years. If I had cash to wager, I’d put good odds on losing at least one vessel.”

“I _have_ done those calculations, Captain.”

“And how will you take the loss?” Hendricks did not have to remind her of her remaining debts, the already-existing conditions of precariousness that had shadowed her dreams and waking moments alike – and he did not have to say either _she couldn’t_ or _with great sacrifice_. She was sure he could read that all over her face, for he said, impossibly gently (for a man she’d been able to hear bawling orders in the teeth of a gale, once): “We all know why you are going on in this way, Nellie.”

She wouldn’t hear it – and she wouldn’t weep in public, for all of Long Wharf to see. Biting back a curse, Nellie consciously reached for her fears and anger instead, hissing, for the second time in as many hours: “Because my father was a drunk and a spendthrift who squandered the little my mother and step-mother brought to the union on the Lord-only-knows-what, and I will be _damned_ before I let some _interloper_ sit in _my home_ and help himself to _my money_ to flatter his own vanity and conspire to push my two living children out. _Captain Treat_ trusted me to dispose of our ships, our investments, our children, in the way I judged best and safest. _I will not betray that trust!_ ”

Unthinkingly, she banged the barrel-table – hard enough that her hand smarted, and that she started, surprising even herself. Hendricks merely reached into his pocket and handed her his handkerchief.

“God love you, Mrs. T,” he said, crossing his arms before him, bidding her to wipe her eyes before the hot tears welled over, “I remember where Samuel found you, and you and I know that’s an old story between us. The war is a certain threat to you and the children’s well-being; remarriage only a possible one – which you might avoid by your own cleverness and the assistance of Mr. Bishop in legal matters.”

“There is a difference,” she insisted, mulishly unwilling to see what her Aunt and her friend were laying out before her.

Hendricks favored her with a look that was no less kind for all its sharpness. 

“There is.”

He gestured for her to explain, which she resented, for she could barely explain it herself. “The war is someone else’s doing,” she said, hesitantly, “But should the man I choose prove worthless –”

“You feel that ruin would be your doing?”

Nellie nodded, relieved Hendricks had said it and she had not had to fumble after the words – and further relieved that he seemed to be willing to let it drop, after the single evocation of Captain Treat’s fond nickname for her. ‘Nellie’ alone was enough that she knew that Hendricks had the same suspicions Aunt B had had; that her refusal to entertain the possibility of remarriage was not pragmatic reduction of risk alone. 

Hendricks left her alone to manage some of the cargo for a time, returning with a careful quip, thrown out like the lead-line, about finding a rich old widower who’d leave her in peace before too many years might pass. She rejected that with a scoff and wave of her hand, which her friend evidently took as permission to continue.

“Why not marry some handsome young man who’s got more money than brains, then? The sort who’ll be only too happy for you to do as you please, and be grateful to you for it? You’re worldly enough and just old enough to terrify some wealthy ne’er-do-well into being a creditable member of society.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I am serious.”

“Fine. If you’re determined to have a laugh at my expense, then _you_ ought to marry me,” Nellie said tartly, aware that Hendricks was teasing her out of her temper, “We’ll be terrifically unhappy together, but at least I’ll have the comfort of a known quantity.”

“Alas, we neither of us have what the other wants,” replied Hendricks, “I’ve no ambition beyond what I’ve achieved, and you are far too enterprising for me.”

“If I am too enterprising for you, then I’ll happily take my information elsewhere.”

“And leave your oldest friend in Boston out to dry with the wash? For shame, Mrs. T.”

They squabbled companionably for a few moments more, Nellie feeling more herself than she had since stepping into the Bendish parlor – 

And then Hendricks leapt to his feet, nearly knocking the books off the barrel they’d appropriated for a table, looking over her shoulder with a growing grimace. “What on …” he began so say, looking to Long Wharf – and then, flatly, “Fuck.”

“Captain?”

“Stay here, Mrs. T, or get below. Susannah! – you too, if you please. There’s about to be a riot or a murder, and no mistake.”

Nellie, of course, did neither (though waved at Susannah to stay aft and out of the way) – darting forward through the mess of the _Watch and Wait_ ’s preparations for sea. Hendricks made a half-hearted attempt to turn her back, but that was as good as bailing a boat with a thimble – from Long Wharf, she could hear raised voices – as the rest of the ambient noise of the waterfront fell away to a low, portentous rumbling – in sound and evocation every bit the sound of distant thunder.

By the gangway, she finally caught sight of what was happening: It was Lieutenant Nibley, late summer sun catching on his gold braid, speaking with one of the _Watch and Wait_ ’s men – Dooley? Doodle? – who was flanked by two scarlet-coated Marines. The poor sailor’s weathered face had gone pale.

“ – we were on the _Ajax_ together, weren’t we? Not so long ago? Five years, maybe six?” Nibley was saying, in a tone that only sounded friendly.

“No,” replied Doodle, “Never been the King’s man.”

_This was a lie_ – Nellie knew it, had heard Hendricks tell her Doodle’s history. She looked over to her friend, who, at Doodle’s words, pressed a belaying pin into her hands with a Look and took off down the gangway with a bellowed, “What the _hell_ is the meaning of all this?”

Nibley ignored Hendricks. “You ran in Port Mahon, as I recall.”

“Never been in the Med.”

“Lieutenant Nibley, why are you harassing my man?” Hendricks put himself between Doodle and Nibley, with a volcanic look. He was not a large man, but he had a way of convincing those around him he was. Hendricks was doing it now, with a reassuring glance towards his sailor.

“He’s not your man. His name isn’t even Doodle. Tom Hawkins, wasn’t it? You were a topman.”

“No, sir!” protested Doodle, who tried to break away, only to have the two blank-faced marines hold him by his arms more firmly – and around them, the crowd flared and surged, and Nellie uneasily noticed she was not the only body present clutching a pin or a club – as though men needed that to fight.

“Where’s your proof, Lieutenant Nibley?” Nellie watched Hendricks look about himself at the uneasy gathering, clearly realizing he had numbers on his side – and then added, for the crowd’s benefit, as they continued to surround them, “Let him go. He’s no deserter and he’s signed my ship’s articles.”

“Not a deserter? Either you’re a liar or a half-wit, Captain Hendricks!”

Hendricks only bristled – the angry throng around him shouted and surged forward, hurling insults towards Nibley and actual projectiles alike. Nellie watched, as if from a far greater distance than the few arms-lengths that separated her in the waist of the _Watch and Wait_ from the pandemonium breaking loose on the wharf: the rest of Nibley’s party bunching together, phalanx-like – Nibley shouting imprecations back at the crowd – one of the two marines holding Doodle had dropped his quarry and was reaching for his musket – 

“Lieutenant Nibley,” came a loud, marrow-freezing hail – for a moment, Nellie couldn’t place it for its volume, until she caught sight of another naval party further down the Wharf, though approaching with all speed.

Nellie had never been so glad to see Commodore Norrington’s over-braided coat or hear his voice in her life – though her flush of relief was swiftly tempered by the ice-cold realization that the crowd surrounding Nibley was still clutching their clubs and staves, still surging and muttering and ready for a fight. They might have deserved it – having been pushed so far – certainly, the crowd expected one. Perhaps the Commodore knew this, for he left Lieutenant Groves and his marines behind him with a word, approaching the _Watch and Wait_ on his own, unarmed and alone.

_What –_ ?

She should have been terrified to do that herself, but then, Norrington’s usual opponents had pistols and cannons trained on him; Nellie wondered, at a remove from herself and the present, what a restive crowd of men bearing clubs looked like, to him.

Norrington slowed as he approached, surveying the crowd and Nibley’s party with deliberate coolness. They had quieted, and no one was hurling detritus or curses anymore, but it was plain to Nellie, from the restlessness of both parties, that one inciting word would resume what had been heading towards a riot.

“Pearson,” said Norrington, addressing the marine who had his piece half-brandished before him, “Shoulder your firelock.”

The man, Pearson, did so, with a nervous air about him, and Norrington rounded on his officer with a cold, hard look.

“Lieutenant Nibley, you will oblige me with an explanation for the present disorder.”

“This man, Hawkins, is a deserter, sir,” Nibley replied, drawing himself up to his full height under scrutiny – nearly impressive, but the Commodore was taller yet, and obviously more used to commanding. Nibley had to look up at him, ruining the effect of his gesture.

“From the _Teal_?”

“No, sir. From the –”

Norrington impatiently interrupted. “From the _Garland_ , then?”

“No, sir. The _Ajax_. I remember him, sir.”

“Have you proof of this accusation?”

Nibley made no response for several long moments. Nellie was holding her breath, she belatedly realized, and shifting the belaying pin between her mitted palms. “Only my memory, sir.”

Norrington nodded, in such a way that Nellie suspected he’d already known the answer - and perhaps, she thought, the Commodore had only asked the question in order to have Nibley admit his wrong-doing aloud. Certainly, Nibley seemed to think so – he was looking venomously at Norrington – an expression that only intensified as Norrington address both him and the crowd.

“You are a zealous officer, Lieutenant Nibley,” he said, in such a way that it was clear he meant no compliment by it, “And you will report on the _Garland_ immediately. You – Moore – let the man go.”

This the other marine did, and Doodle wasted no time making for safety and the _Watch and Wait_ with nary a backward glance. Nibley and his party retreated to their boat under Norrington’s sharp eye – at which point Norrington turned, and said something inaudible to Hendricks, who nodded stiffly in return. Her friend called for the work of preparing for sea to continue.

As watched Hendricks retreat up the gangway to the _Watch and Wait_ , Commodore Norrington caught sight of her – evidently surprised, for he glanced her way twice before acknowledging her with a polite half-bow, and strode off towards the _Garland_ ’s boat.

Hendricks came up to stand with her and worked his jaw, watching the naval parties make for the _Garland_ , and the men on Long Wharf to slowly disperse, still discontent. “We’re gone tomorrow, or the day next,” he said at last. “Pick up the rest of a cargo in Philadelphia; I’ve got some credit there. Give Doodle a chance to jump ship, though I doubt he will.”

“Family? A Mrs. Doodle?”

“Just so, Mrs. T. You’ll keep an eye or an ear out for her, will you? Make sure that prick doesn’t harass her about her husband. I’ll leave something with you, just in case – you ought to avoid Long Wharf for a bit, let tempers cool – I’ll be by before we leave.”

“And you’ll bring a letter to John and Henrietta?”

“Of course, Mrs. T,” he said, offering his hand to shake, and they did. “Now off with you. We’re working past sundown tonight. Pray for us, if you like. Enjoy your supper.”

* * *

“It was a difficult day for you, Elinor, I’m sure,” Mary was saying cautiously, fetching a glass of Madiera from the service on the parlor table, and bringing it to her sister at her desk.

Surreptitiously glancing at Polly and Sam – happily playing knuckles after being given a reprieve from their tasks and studies – Nellie took an unbecoming gulp of the fortified wine, and quirked her brows. Her sister had every right to be concerned – as soon as she’d been through the door, she’d dashed into the parlor and embraced Polly and Sam at once, pressing kisses against the tops of their heads – before catching Mary in a crushing embrace of her own and apologizing repeatedly. At their evening meal, Nellie had tried to be as good a mother and sister as she ever had been, ashamed that she had taken her upset out on them.

“I missed last year’s disturbances over the Market House,” she said, trying for flippant good humor, “It was good of the people of Boston to be so ready to restage their theatrical success.”

“Was it so close a thing?” Mary moved a chair closer to the desk and sat by her, close enough that they could keep their conversation at a low whisper.

“Captain Hendricks predicted a murder, when he saw what Lieutenant Nibley was doing. It was only the Commodore’s intervention on behalf of Doodle, Captain Hendricks’s man, that prevented the crowd from running riot.”

“Goodness!”

“Nibley’s pushed the waterfront too far. I have no idea what Commodore Norrington will do, but it must be drastic.” Nellie shook her head, and looked down at her letter to John: ‘ _Autocratickal_ ’ and ‘ _Present Uneasyness_ ’ leapt off the page, though the line after line of her writing seemed nothing so much as the lapping waves of a rising tide. Unwelcome. She shook her head again, and smiled at Mary. “But he is a conscientious man. I think the Commodore will do what is necessary to calm the waterfront, and you need have no fear of this overshadowing your wedding.”

“I was not worried on my account – and nor was I only worried over what occurred on Long Wharf. What did Aunt Bendish say to you?”

She was sorely tempted to say ‘nothing,’ but rejected the impulse as a ruse that would be ridiculously obvious to her sister, and replied that Aunt B had ambushed her with the subject of remarriage. This was truer to her feelings than Aunt B’s actions, but Nellie was willing to excuse her own pushing the truth in the service of explaining her bad temper.

“You are out of mourning,” Mary said, carefully.

“More a change in my dress than any other thing – And some widows choose to never remarry. I am well-provided for –” another half-truth, but she had been careful to keep her debts hidden from her sister! “– so there is nothing compelling me to do so.”

“And should you wish to?”

Nellie neatly stepped around that suggestion by telling Mary she had quite enough to do with one wedding, and wouldn’t dream of undertaking another while her sister’s marriage had not yet occurred. Mary raised her brows at this, but like Hendricks declined to press, and returned to asking for a fuller account of what had happened on Long Wharf. This, Nellie was happy enough to give, though there certainly was something strange about speaking highly of Commodore Norrington's conduct and judgment! – and so they passed the rest of the evening quite happily.

Whether through the relative contentment of the evening compared to the upset of the day, or through the exhaustion and fear that dogged most of her waking moments before then, sleep came easily to Nellie – who, feeling fragile, had wrapped herself in her late husband’s banyan before hiding under her sheets. She dreamed –

* * *

Sitting to her coffee and porridge the next morning, before the rest of the house rose, Nellie felt sure she’d dreamed of – of _Newport_ , somehow, though sorting through the scattered images barely seemed conclusive: busy unformed streets that might as well have been in Boston, the cry of sea-birds, the sharp pungency of molasses about to be distilled down to jewel-colored rum. The two seaports had grown to be much like one another, though, Nellie thought a little irrevently, Newport had more Baptists.

All jesting aside, she wasn’t sure she liked what had brought it to mind.

Tentatively, Nellie reached back into her memories of her girlhood home, thinking of those things that had once brought her comfort through her cold early years. She ignored what she recalled of her father’s house, and imagined herself before the great, white, comforting bulk of the Friends Meeting, door thrown open to its sober interior, as though she might enter, and sit on the old benches in contemplation. It had been – a dozen years? She had walked through that door one last time, before her marriage – not the day of, not the week of, but a full month before. Reverend Clap, of the Congregational Meeting, would not marry a Boston stranger (even one whose own Reverend, Prince, had written in testament of his piety and good character), to a known Quakeress – and so, one cold October day, Elinor Coggeshall had sat in the great, warm quiet for the last time, before letting go of that part of her life – like a weight of cargo, jettisoned to raise a vessel over a bar. Pragmatic. _Practical_. The next four weeks, she walked alone through bustling Thames Street and up Ann to Spring, before the modest steeple on Banister Street eventual came into view.

But since she did not miss that place, she let her thoughts wander – Spring Street to Bridge Street, past the hated gaol, raising the Friends Meeting on her right as soon as she stepped onto Farewell Street. And yet – past the long, shingled rope-walks with the shouts of the gangs, the occasional crack of a way-stick or a club gone astray, there was nothing there for her: the squat, ugly Work House, whose hands curled rough and cold around her heart; then, as the city gave way, green fields all full of tables and stones. She knew who was buried there, though the Coggeshalls had a plot of their own on the other side of the island. Better to turn down towards the waterfront while she had the chance – though Marlborough of course brought her past – 

The gaol.

Nellie dropped her spoon into her porridge, and took a bracing gulp of her coffee. _Of course_ – she had not been able to shake the memory of those hangings since the dinner only a few days before, the awful sound those men’s irons had made as they walked from the gaol to Gravelly Point. Some were terrified. Some defiant. She’d shirked off her chores to stand by the road in her drab apron and dowdy cap, holding desperately to her brother John’s arm.

One of the men had tripped – fallen on his face in the dirt of the road, right before them. Someone laughed. John’d grabbed the kerchief from her hand and darted into the street, helping him to his feet with one hand, and giving him the scrap of old linen with the other, to wipe the blood off his face.

“My name is Powell,” the man – who was barely older than John – had said, in a rough, slow voice, “My people – they don’t know – they are in Wethersfield, up the –”

But one of the constables had struck him a hard blow, pushing him along, and a short time later, she saw Powell hanged from the gallows. Harris’s ensign, the skeleton between an hourglass and a bleeding heart, had waved slowly in the dying breeze.

_What had become of that flag?_ She wondered, unwilling and unable to contemplate any other piece of that horrible tableau, and decided there was no chance of choking down her porridge now. 

Powell had been Ned Low’s gunner, and the things she’d heard of Low’s crew would have curdled milk – certainly, that terrible summer, the reports left her hugging her own elbows to her chest, thinking that John had chosen the sea for his living, and he would face villains like those. But Newport knew pirates, and they’d been friends to that city within her own memory – certainly no one kicked up too much of fuss asking where Captain Paine’s gold had come from, to help build Trinity Church. But Powell – 

Her girlhood self had had no intention of being soft-hearted, incapable of imagining villainy if she had not personally observed it – but perhaps because she’d caught Powell at the brink of Eternity – perhaps because she heard all these tales of piracy at a distance – or because in those days her stockings were all darns and patches, her petticoats turned, and her back always tired – or because she’d seen her father deal a sailor such a mighty blow that his skull cracked – _well_. She’d nicked an apple or two in her time; she’d been able to imagine without much effort, even as a drab little Quaker miss with her hair still down her back, being willing to steal more. That desperation, when it came, could re-arrange the laws of the world.

_Desperation_.

She wasn’t desperate – not yet, at any road – but still she felt a kind of rising tide, fear and foreboding both. The last few days had been full of hard reminders and portentous happenings, and though she had much to look ahead to, in the form of Mary’s coming marriage, any glimpse of the future contained so much that was uncertain, and so many half-perceived threats, that it was impossible to look ahead with any contentment. Her present brought no comfort, and her past happiness seemed walled up alive, somewhere out of reach.

Nellie waited the long day for Hendricks, throwing herself into her tasks and correspondences with a ferocious single-mindedness – and yet abandoning her pursuits to run to the window whenever she thought she heard his familiar gait in the street. Late – after supper, with the sun sinking in the West and the children beginning to yawn – her waiting paid off, and Hendricks came whistling into her parlor with polite greetings for Mary and a wink and a joke for Polly and Sam. 

“It is a quick visit,” he explained, smiling a bit when Sam frowned and Polly stamped, “We’ll be out with the morning tide, so this is farewell, for now.”

While her family and Captain Hendricks visited, Nellie considered all that had occurred over the past two days – how ashamed she had felt, how angry, how frightened; how she still felt out of sorts towards Aunt B over the issue of remarriage, how Mary would soon leave her for her own household, how lonely she would be with Hendricks away. Being friendly in society was not precisely the same as having friends; the former could not supply the want of the latter. 

Too, her incoherent dreams of Newport left her with a deep sense of unease, and as Hendricks was going, that foreboding fixed on him. She knew it was a foolish thing, and tamped it down with some success, able to laugh and talk of piracy and Sir Francis Drake and all manner of adventures in times long gone – only to have that unsettling feeling return, as she pressed her letter to John and Henrietta into his hands and walked him to the door.

“Godspeed, Daniel,” she managed to say, nearly stumbling on his name from disuse, “A safe voyage and a prosperous one to you.”

Hendricks was a little surprised to hear his name, but smiled and embraced her quickly. “Never you fear, Mrs. T. I’ll be back before the harbor freezes. And I’ll give your love to John and Henrietta, shall I?”

Not waiting for an answer, he doffed his hat and made an exaggerated bow, before strolling whistling into the late summer night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pseudonymous Captain Charles Johnson and his _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates_ returns, though in a less immediately dangerous context - Johnson attributed the speech which Hendricks quotes at Nellie to Samuel Bellamy; the other passage, concerning Bellamy and his men weathering a storm, may be darkly ironic, given Bellamy's ultimate fate in a wreck.
> 
> Nellie's reluctant politicking on Norrington's behalf contains some speculation on how much Andrew Oliver had in common, politically, with his uncle Governor Belcher; while the family relationship is real, my interpretation of how it would have affected this fictional and frankly ahistorical series of events is my own. If Andrew Oliver's name sounds familiar, it's because he and Nibley have something in common: both were hanged in effigy - Oliver being appointed the agent in Massachusetts of the Stamp Act in 1765. His wife, Mary, was Margaret Hutchinson's sister; he and Thomas Hutchinson would serve as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, respectively, of Massachusetts in the early 1770s.
> 
> Thomas Hutchinson's difficulties in the provincial assembly in the late 1730s and stance against bills of credit during the colony's ongoing currency problems are real things, though.
> 
> Boston did riot, in 1737 - over food prices and shortages - as alluded to by Nellie.
> 
> Nellie's memories of Newport - particularly the 26 men hanged for piracy at Gravelly Point in Newport - have returned! Groves, apparently, was right to suspect something about those hangings troubling her - and pinged that Nellie might not be quite as down on piracy as the next respectable widow. In passing, Nellie mentions "Paine" - full name, I kid you not, Thomas Paine, a privateer at times accused of piracy, who settled in Jamestown, and helped establish an Anglican parish in Trinity Church at Newport. (Paine was allegedly a friend of Captain Kidd's as well, but I haven't done my due diligence there.)
> 
> The paths that Nellie follows around Newport in her memories are as accurate as I can make them; the first good representation of Newport is the 1777 map drawn by Charles Blaskowitz. The Work-House/Almshouse may be anachronistic for Nellie's c. 1726 last memories of the city; the extant old jailhouse on Marlborough is definitely later, but I don't remember if the original jail was on that spot or somewhere else. Mea culpa!


End file.
